Opioid education & awareness

PAINAUSTRALIA is calling for beVer educa on and awareness around opioid use, in light of evidence of significant harms and increasing use of opioids for chronic non-cancer pain.

Painaustralia ceo Carol BenneV said, “In our submission to the Therapeu c Goods Administra on consulta on paper on op ons for a regulatory response to opioid use and misuse in Australia, we have called for beVer understanding of quality use of medicines and bestprac ce pain management for both prescribers and consumers, as part of a na onal pain strategy.”

BenneV added that prescribers need to be equipped with tools to deliver best‐prac ce pain medicine, which should be part of core training and Con nuing Professional Development, while consumers need the knowledge to seek out the best pain management op ons to suit individual needs.

Visit painaustralia.org.au to download the TGA submission.

MEANWHILE the organisa on also flagged its support for SafeScript, the real‐ me monitoring system being developed for Victoria, saying it has the poten al to set the benchmark for a na onal real‐ me monitoring system and help iden fy people with chronic pain in need of urgent assistance.

This was also one of the Pharmacy Guild’s main thrusts in its submission to the TGA opioid consulta on ( PD Mon).

Painaustralia made this a key posi on in its submission to the Victorian Government on the Regulatory Impact Statement and Proposed Regula ons for SafeScript which is being developed by Guild offshoot FRED IT ‐ CLICK HERE.