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RPS: stick with opiate brand

Date published: 14/02/2006

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) has urged for sustained release morphine preparations and opioid patches to be prescribed by brand name.

The society's practice committee made the recommendation after it came to the view that there might be "small, but significant differences" in release rates for the various sustained release preparations, which it is thought could affect the balance for patients. Doctors are urged to prescribe not generic names but brand names of products to ensure patients get unchanging treatments.

Sid Dajani, chair of the practice committee, said: "To improve patient safety, compliance and efficacy, the society strongly endorses the continuity of supply of the same brand of sustained release morphine preparations and opioid patches for patients and would support the requirement to prescribe these products by brand name.

"To help identify which brand of sustained release morphine or opioid patch a patient has received pharmacists should record the brand dispensed in their PMRs [patient's medical records] especially as many prescriptions are currently written generically." It was also noted that patients could become alarmed when changing brands or use a new brand incorrectly.

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