GPs forced to set up special clinics to wean patients off painkillers
SOARING painkiller use has forced GPs to set up specialist clinics to treat patients addicted to dangerous opioid drugs.
Health chiefs in Scotland fear the number of people hooked on over-the-counter and prescription drugs such as co-codamol and dihydrocodeine is at crisis levels.
Some GP surgeries are treating more people hooked on medicines handed out by doctors and pharmacists than illegal drugs. The new clinics focus on those taking powerful opioid painkillers such as tramadol and morphine.
Official NHS figures show 2.7million prescriptions for such drugs were handed out in Scotland last year, compared with 1.6million a decade earlier.
Two specialist clinics have been launched in NHS Lanarkshire and are run from GP surgeries, rather than addiction services for illicit drug users, to avoid ‘stigma’.
But last night critics said the SNP must ‘up its game’ on painkiller addiction.
Opioids are prescribed for severe symptoms such as back or neck pain after an injury, as well as arthritis. They are also given to patients before and after operations. Duncan Hill, pharmacist in substance misuse for NHS Lanarkshire, said many patients end up in a ‘trap’.
He added: ‘We had started to notice an increase in the number of patients addicted to prescribed opioid analgesics, rather than illicit drugs.
‘We wanted to set up a different model to help these patients caught in this trap and give them different ways to break the cycle of addiction.’
Patients are referred to the scheme if on a repeat opioid prescription. A pharmacist reviews this and, if appropriate, helps them to reduce their dose or gives advice on leaving longer gaps between doses.
They are also referred to services such as physiotherapy or offered non-addictive alternative drugs.
Scottish Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs said: ‘The SNP Government needs to up its game across the board when it comes to drug addiction. That needs to happen by providing more help for patients who’ve become dependent on strong painkillers and urging the NHS to perhaps reconsider, in some cases, if such painkillers are the correct course of treatment.’
The cost of prescribing opioids in Scotland soared from just under £18million in 2004/05 to around £29million last year.
In a paper published last week in scientific journal Pharmacy, the NHS Lanarkshire team revealed the clinics’ success.
In one practice, prescriptions of dihydrocodeine fell from almost 900 daily doses per 100,000 population in the first three months of 2016 to around 500 in the same period of 2019.
The paper said: ‘Opioid analgesics have an important role in the management of pain but they must be used cautiously and appropriately to prevent dependency.’
Mr Hill said other health boards could follow the model: ‘We’ve made our findings public so that others could adapt it to their own local needs.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Our chronic pain prescribing strategy is designed to tackle the issue of over-treatment.’ He added: ‘We are convening a group of experts to undertake a review of prescribing of drugs that have the potential to cause addiction.’
‘Break cycle of addiction’