Medicines Safety Improvement Programme

The Medicines Safety Improvement Programme (MedSIP) aims to reduce severe avoidable medication related harm through medicines optimisation and quality improvement.

Opioid reduction is the main focus of this programme in 2024/25 along with two pipeline elements: Psychotropics in Learning Disability and Falls inducing medicines in Frailty.

Opioids

Opioids are a highly effective class of analgesics (medicines used for pain) and can be of great benefit to many people who are living with pain. However, in the case of ‘chronic non-cancer pain’, when the source of long-term pain does not have a cause that can be treated, opioids can do more harm than good, particularly when used at higher doses.

The Faculty of Pain Medicine has advised that increasing opioid load above >120mg/day morphine equivalent is unlikely to yield further benefits but exposes the patient to increased harm*

Management of ‘chronic non-cancer pain’ requires personalised care and shared decision making at its core with patients requiring a mixture of biopsychosocial support. A whole system approach is proposed to support people to live well with their ‘chronic non-cancer pain’. We are linking with partners across the Integrated Care System (ICS) to facilitate this.

HI NENC has created an NHS Futures Platform to support the work of the Pain Community of Practice (CoP). If you would like to be invited to the platform, please contact [email protected] or you can request an invitation via the North East and North Cumbria Pain Community of Practise on the NHS Futures Platform.

Read our Impact Report on Reducing Opioid Prescribing showcasing eleven of our projects in the NENC area.

Reducing Opioid Prescribing Impact Report

Key ambitions of the Programme

The overall aim is to facilitate regional collaboration to ensure the sharing of intelligence, good practice, learning and resources to support the reduction of overall opioid prescribing.

The NENC region already have numerous initiatives being carried out within the ICS to reduce opioid prescribing and the associated risk. The NENC PSC will facilitate a holistic approach to the identification of patients from areas of high deprivation, high health inequalities and/or where there are high opioid prescription rates within the ICS. This will support the region to move closer towards the ambition of reducing overall total patients prescribed an opioid and overall total number of patients on high dose opioids.

Opioid Reduction Projects

Health Care Professionals Opioid Awareness Resources These awareness resource tools may be useful for Health Care Professionals to support their patients to manage chronic pain more effectively.

OuCh (Opioid Use Change) is a project developed in The Newcastle upon Tyne NHS Hospitals Foundation Trust which uses an educational video including an element of patient lived experience to be viewed by healthcare professionals and aimed to influence opioid prescribing habits.

CROP (Campaign to Reduce Opioid Prescribing) is a campaign aimed at assisting general practices to review opioid prescribing in primary care. Patient lived experience videos also developed to support the campaign.

Teesside University NIPP Project is an intervention which aims to reduce opioid prescribing in primary care where GP video is sent to patients’ smartphones inviting them to consider reducing/ceasing their opioid use.

All resources relating to this project can be found here:

Pain and Opioid Management Resources

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Please view our events area for events related to this subject area. Past events will include presentations and recordings where available.

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