Short Life Working Group on Prescription Medicine Dependence and Withdrawal - Consultation on Draft Recommendations

Overview

In response to a public petition in Scotland and work undertaken by Public Health England to review dependence and withdrawal associated with some prescribed medicines, Scottish Government established a short life working group (SLWG) to look at the scale of the issues in Scotland and the recommendations from the PHE report in the Scottish context. Membership of the SLWG included medical, pharmacy and nursing representation from the professions as well as professional bodies, patients with lived experience, patient organisations, SIGN, Public Health Scotland and academia.
Despite the challenges of COVID, the SLWG continued to meet to consider the Scottish prescribing data and finalise their draft recommendations. We are now publishing these recommendations as a consultation and look forward to receiving your contributions.

Why your views matter

We are publishing the draft recommendations as a consultation so that we can gather views on the recommendations from a wide range of individuals and groups . Responses to the consultation will be used to develop the recommendations prior to finalisation.

Read the consultation paper. 

What happens next

Once the consultation has closed we will undertake an analysis of responses that will then be used to develop finalised recommendations.