Pain specialists call for annual review of long term opioid use

Patients with chronic pain, especially those to whom long term opioids are prescribed in primary care, should undergo an annual review to ensure that drugs are not being prescribed inappropriately, specialist pain organisations believe.

Martin Johnson, chair of the Chronic Pain Policy Coalition and vice president of the British Pain Society, said that the two groups were pushing for there to be at least an annual review of patients with chronic pain, in the same way that patients with asthma are reviewed. They will be holding a meeting with stakeholders this summer to take the issue forward, to look at the …