Faye’s story: good practice when prescribing opioids for chronic pain

These resources highlight the difficulties in prescribing opioids to manage chronic pain and offer advice and guidance to all healthcare professionals who are responsible for administering them.

Opioids are effective analgesics for acute pain and end of life care, however they are of limited use for long term chronic pain. Side effects are very common and up to a quarter of patients taking opioids long term have developed a dependence on them. Long term opioid prescribing for chronic non-cancer pain is becoming an increasing issue in England; as highlighted by the British Medical Association.

Faye’s story is also told in video form to put these potential dangers into reality by describing, from her parent’s perspective, the sequence of events that ultimately led to her untimely death from respiratory depression. The video highlights the difficulties in prescribing opioids to manage chronic pain and offers advice and guidance to all healthcare professionals who are responsible for administering them.

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