SPOT - The Safer Prescription of Opioids Tool - National Scale-up and Deployment

Spot是更安全的阿片类药物处方工具，在生命末期缓解疼痛时为处方人员提供支持。它已经在BBC的电视和网络上出现，目前正在NHS Borders使用，以支持患者的姑息护理。COVID19大流行正在创造对在生命末期缓解疼痛的药物(称为阿片类药物)的需求增加。需求的增加反过来导致这些药物可用一线选择的短缺。与此同时，医生和护士被重新部署到陌生的环境中工作，并承担新的角色，包括越来越多地开出阿片类药物用于止痛和姑息治疗。这使患者和医生和护士面临伤害的风险。在新的环境下开这些不熟悉的药物有潜在的风险，这会增加给患者过量用药导致呼吸抑制和可能死亡的可能性，或者给患者和患者用药不足的可能性。我们知道Spot支持处方人员安全地使用这些药物，它在降低患者受到伤害的风险方面发挥了作用。该项目的目的是让英国所有的处方者在COVID19大流行期间免费使用Spot，并分析处方数据，以确保Spot能够最好地支持医生和护士开出这些至关重要的药物。我们将批准FDA向海外出口现货，并寻求与美国和英国的组织建立合作伙伴关系。

SPOT, The Safer Prescription of Opioids Tool, supports prescribers when relieving pain at the end-of-life. It has been featured in the BBC on TV and online, and it is currently in use in NHS Borders to support palliative care of patients.The COVID19 pandemic is creating an increased demand for drugs (known as Opioids) that relieve pain at the end of life. This increased demand is in turn causing shortages of the first-line choices available for these drugs.At the same time, doctors and nurses are being redeployed to work in unfamiliar environments and undertake new roles including an increasing amount of prescribing of opioids for pain and palliative care.This puts the patients, and the doctors and nurses at risk of harm. There is a potential risk that prescribing these unfamiliar medicines in a new setting leads to an increased likelihood of overdosing a patient causing respiratory depression and possible death, or under-dosing the patient and the patient suffering.We know that SPOT supports prescribers in using these medicines safely and that it has a role in reducing the risk to patients of harm.The aim of this project is to make SPOT available to all prescribers in the UK on a free-to-use basis for the duration of the COVID19 pandemic and analyse the prescribing data to make sure that SPOT can best support doctors and nurses when they prescribe these vital drugs. We will approve SPOT for the FDA to export SPOT overseas and seek partnership with organisations in the USA and UK.