Guide to the National Support Materials

The NPC national support materials provide access to online and downloadable resources that address selected prescribing and medicines management priorities within the NHS.

The materials are intended to raise awareness of the important issues within each topic and provide support to individuals and organisations to make changes to current ways of working. They cover policy and guidance, therapeutics and implementation and monitoring at a local level.

Selection of topics is informed by national priority areas for prescribing and medicines management, highlighted by national bodies and NHS organisations

• Department of Health
• NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement
• National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)
• National Patient Safety Agency
• Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA)
• National Audit Office
• Healthcare Commission

Each topic includes both therapeutics and implementation resources.

Safer NSAID prescribing support materials

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have been available for many years and are prescribed commonly in the management of musculoskeletal disorders and pain. All are associated with side effects, some of which can be serious and life-threatening. They include:

• Gastrointestinal complications (such as bleeding, ulceration and perforation)
• Cardiovascular complications (such as myocardial infarction and stroke)

Prescribing choices are complex and should be based on the safety profiles of individual NSAIDs and individual patient risk factors.

The national support materials include a range of resources to support organisations and individuals plan and implement safer ways to prescribe NSAIDs. The materials collated and presented in NPCi relate to all NSAIDs but focus, in particular, on safer prescribing of those most commonly used in England.

Therapeutics Resources
The NPC's MeReC Extra 30 contains a new summary on the cardiovascular and gastrointestinal safety of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). It highlights a need for increased vigilance by prescribers and patients when considering the use of some traditional anti-inflammatory painkillers to patients at risk of cardiovascular events, such as heart attack or stroke.

STOP PRESS

On 19th November 2007, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) suspended the licence for Prexige (lumiracoxib) due to the safety concerns about possible liver damage for patients. More information is available from the MHRA website here.

Implementation resources
Materials to support implementation and facilitate change. Please note that some of the resources are provided as templates intended for local adaptation. The remainder are not intended to be changed. They can be found in the Implementation Resources room.

Acknowledgements
The National Prescribing Centre would like to acknowledge the support of all of the individuals and organisations that have shared their ideas, documents and other materials to enable us to create the resources for safer NSAID prescribing.