by Dr Dan Ewald
Lead Clinical Adviser, NCPHN
Recently new Opioid Dependence Treatment Guidelines were released by NSW Health. Click here to access the guidelines.
After many years of waiting for such changes, the guidelines allow an unaccredited GP to prescribe methadone OTP for up to 10 patients, plus up to 20 buprenorphine-naloxone patients (Suboxone).
The HealthPathways team has also been at work in this space, setting out the paperwork required (which isn’t that hard), and an Opiate Treatment pathway will be live on the website soon.
Click here to visit the Mid and North Coast HealthPathways website.
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I have been prescribing OTP for a number of patients in both my mainstream practice and my AMS practice, and it is really not difficult work. The key is to only take on patients who have been stable in a specialist OTP program for some time and are looking for more comprehensive GP care in a more convenient location.
Currently specialist services are overloaded with patients and are keen to help make smooth transitions to GPs for patients ready for the change. I am happy to take the easy patients, so they can deal with the difficult ones.
We may now see OTP prescribing become a regular procedure in general practice.