Medicines in Practice is a series of evidence–based publications specifically designed to support stakeholder medicines optimisation services. The series aims to maximise health gains through the optimum use of medicines, by influencing and changing prescribing behaviour.

Opioids are effective for acute pain and pain at the end of life, but there is little evidence of their effectiveness for long term pain. This document supports primary care teams to review patients receiving regular large quantities of morphine 10mg/5mL oral solution and includes advice on how these patients could be managed.

This update includes:

  • opioid equivalence information to align with the updated Opioids Aware information
  • information on safety issues identified with morphine oral solution 10mg/5mL.
  • details regarding the NHSBSA Epact2 opioid dashboard which can be used to identify patients for review.