Tees Valley CCG is a clear outlier in terms of opioid prescribing; over 100% higher than the national average.
The ultimate ambition of this project was to educate and empower primary care pharmacists to undertake patient centred opioid reduction clinics, in order to encourage and support patients through this difficult process and ultimately reduce levels of opioid prescribing in Tees Valley.
The CCG has been working closely with the local FT pain specialists to highlight issues related to the prescribing of high dose opioids in non-cancer pain. Clinicians do understand the problem but struggle to tackle the issue in patients as discussions around reduction programmes are time consuming; not made easier by the Covid related lockdown which commenced back in March 2020!
Collaborating with Warwick University and local FT pain specialists, training sessions, building on principles from the IWOTCH trial, were delivered to in excess of 30 primary care pharmacists, together with pain specialists from a neighbouring trust who were very keen to replicate the opioid reduction model that STHFT were operating.
