Pharmacy and Medicines Management teams have been engaged for many years in work aimed at reducing analgesic prescribing. This is sometimes done in isolation from pain services and can be difficult for people living with pain to understand in the context of their 'pain management'. Analgesic stewardship aims to improve the use of pain relief medicines and reduce harm related to them. This perhaps requires practitioners to think differently about how messages around pain and analgesics are communicated to those taking them, whilst also giving positive support to help people live well with pain.
This session will aim to explain how analgesic stewardship and pain management co-exist and how to provide advice and support to people as they learn to rely less on medicines and more on themselves.