Aural Apothecary Archives: Tracy Brown – What is Analgesic Stewardship

As a prelude to our next episode, where we discuss the issue of pain and opioid dependency, we are replaying a classic from the Aural Apothecary Archive. This is particularly timely as this is also the month that guidance on ‘Optimising personalised care for adults prescribing medicines associated with dependence or withdrawal symptoms’ has been issued in England. We will pick up on this guidance next time. In the meantime enjoy this prelude…

This was a fascinating episode where we talked to Tracy Brown – an award winning pharmacist working in Glasgow. As well as running primary care pain clinics Tracy runs the Pain Teach and Treat Programme. We talked about the difficulties of supporting people with chronic pain along with the concept of Analgesic Stewardship. As ever we threw a bit of behaviour change into the mix.

Our micro-discussion focused on General Practice responses to opioid prescribing feedback – a paper which examines how detailed feedback to prescribers can improve patient care https://bjgp.org/content/71/711/e788.

As with all our guests we asked Tracy to pick her ‘Desert Island Drug’, a career defining anthem and a book that has influenced her work. The choices do not disappoint.

We reference a number of pain resources – these include; - Live Well with Pain – https://livewellwithpain.co.uk-

Flipping Pain – https://flippinpain.co.uk To get in touch follow us on Twitter @auralapothecary or email us at auralapothecarypod@gmail.com

You can listen to the Aural Apothecary playlist here; https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3OsWj4w8sxsvuwR9zMXgn5?si=tiHXrQI7QsGtSQwPyz1KBg

You can view the Aural Apothecary Library here; The Aural Apothecary - Bookcase:

Tracy’s Bio

Tracy moved from community pharmacy to primary care 17 years ago. She ran a benzodiazepine step down clinic for several years before, in 2006, Tracy started a pain clinic in one of the GP practices in Glasgow {Govanhill Health Centre.}In 2020 Tracy applied for Scottish Government funding under the Modernising Patient Pathways Programme to expand her pain clinic to cover the three additional GP practices in Govanhill Health Centre.She now runs the Pain Teach and Treat programme, attends the Pain Network meetings and is a become a member of the Scottish Pain Pharmacists Network In 2021 Tracy won the PRESCQIPP award for Addressing Overprescribing and was voted the Silver award winner for her work on deprescribing.