The Campaign to Reduce Opioid Prescribing (CROP) in UK primary care

Dr Sarah Alderson is a NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer in Primary Care and a salaried GP at Spring Hall Medical Practice in Halifax, UK. After being a full time GP for three years, Sarah studied for her PhD on Patients understanding of depression associated with chronic disease. Her current research continues to look at mental and physical disease co-morbidity and understanding behaviour and behaviour change in order to embed interventions targeting patients and professionals within primary care, particularly the use of audit and feedback interventions. Her Campaign to Reduce Opioid Prescribing has won awards for innovation and impact.

Abstract

Opioid use in chronic, non-cancer pain is escalating, leading to concerns that patients are prescribed opioids inappropriately and alternatives are under-used. CROP provided 316 practices in West Yorkshire, UK with bimonthly enhanced performance feedback reports on their opioid prescribing and in comparison to other practices within West Yorkshire for a year. I am planning to assess the potential change in the rate of opioid prescribing using a controlled interrupted time series analysis.