Q-PROMPPT Blog to close on 18th December
11th December 2019
Over the last 10 weeks we have formed an online research community for people living with persistent pain. Many people have joined our community and shared their views and experiences to help improve care for people living with long-term pain. We would like to say a BIG thank you for your participation. Your posts and comments are valuable and will help our research team to better develop a pain review that is acceptable, meaningful, and helpful to people living with long-term pain.
The blog will remain open until 18th December to current and new participants. The Q-PROMPPT Blog will close on the afternoon of 18th December and will no longer be available to participants after this time. Updates on how the Q-PROMPPT blog has impacted the PROMPPT pain review will be published on this website next year.
Pharmacist training begins with a practice run
6th November 2019
Patient and clinical pharmacists were represented at the very first practice run of the PROMPPT pharmacist training package on Friday 1st November. The training was led by Dr Julie Ashworth, Prof Tamar Pincus and collaborators from the Keele University School of Medicine, Dr Janet Lefroy and Dr Matt Webb. The training, once fully developed, will support pharmacists to review patients with persistent pain and regularly taking opioid medicines.
Pharmacist trainees and PROMPPT research team members at the PROMPPT training on 1st November (From left to right, Robert Saunders, Nirlas Bathia, Dr Julie Ashworth, Dr Matt Webb, Dr Janet Lefroy, Mara Cope).
Patient representative, Deb Hickman supporting pharmacist Robert Saunders to have conversations about living with pain and taking opioid medicines.
How are pain medication reviews currently done? New discussion topic on the Q-PROMPPT Blog
23rd October 2019
Four discussion topics are now open on the Q-PROMPPT Blog. Participants of the research blog are discussing their experiences and views of:
- Living with long-term pain
- Taking medicines for long-term pain
- Talking to healthcare professionals about pain
- Pain medication reviews – current practice
The Q-PROMPPT Blog is open for the next 7-9 weeks to people with experience of living with long-term pain and using medicines for their pain. People can join the blog at any time whilst it is open.
Find out more here.
New discussion topic on the Q-PROMPPT Blog
8th October 2019
The Q-PROMPPT Blog has launched its second topic: Experiences of taking medication for long-term pain.
The Q-PROMPPT Blog is an online discussion forum for people living with persistent pain to share their views and experiences. Information from the blog will be used to help improve care for people living with long-term pain in the UK.
Find out more here.
PROMPPT and Q-PROMPPT Blog featured in the Pharmaceutical Journal
7th October 2019
The Pharmaceutical Journal published an article about PROMPPT. The piece offers an overview of the 5-year programme and celebrates the launch of the Q-PROMPPT Blog. Read more here.
Q-PROMPPT Research Blog is Live
3rd October 2019
We are excited to announce the Q-PROMPPT Blog is now open.
Do you live with long-term pain? Are you taking (or have taken in the past) opioid medicines for your pain? The PROMPPT team are keen to hear from you. We are interested in your views and experiences to help improve the care people living with pain receive.
To help them learn from as many different people as possible, the research team has set up an online discussion forum called the Q-PROMPPT Blog. You can take part via the internet how and when they want to. The blog is designed so that people with basic computer skills with no experience of using discussion forums can fully participate.
You can find out more about the Q-PROMPPT Blog and how to participate here.
Dr Julie Ashworth featured on Airing Pain podcast
4th September 2019
Dr Julie Ashworth, Senior Lecturer in Pain Medicine and Principal Investigator on the PROMPPT programme, features on this month’s Pain Concern podcast, Airing Pain. The episode focuses on patients as research participants and collaborators. Approximately 13 minutes into the episode you can hear what Julie has to say about PROMPPT and our online research forum for people with persistent pain, the Q-PROMPPT blog. Simply click play on the link below and have a listen.
PROMPPT Bulletin Launched
29th August 2019
We are excited to announce the publication of our PROMPPT bulletin: PROMPPT Update . The bulletin offers a summary of the latest project developments and progress with the research programme. In this first edition, we give an overview of the programme, the PROMPPT community, and highlight an example of how the community has made an impact on the research we’re doing. To open a PDF version of the newsletter click here.
Q-PROMPPT has the green light to Go, Go, Go!
18th July 2019
The PROMPPT team is glad to announce the first phase of the project, called Q-PROMPPT, has been granted ethical approval by the Research Ethics Committee and Health Research Association and given ‘Green Light’ by Keele University Clinical Trials Unit to begin the study. Recruitment has now begun inviting people to participate in Q-PROMPPT interviews. These discussions will help inform improvements to the support people with long-term pain receive in primary care.
Who are we inviting to take part?
Patients – Keele Clinical Trials Network are working with GP practices in the West Midlands area to invite people, who are living with long-term pain and taking regular opioid medicines, to be interviewed by one of our researchers.
GPs and Clinical Pharmacists – if you are a GP or Clinical Pharmacist currently practicing in the West Midlands area and are interested in being interviewed as part of the project you can contact us here.
PROMPPT programme awarded NIHR funding
15th January 2019
£2.4 million grant to help reduce overprescribing of opioids A research team from Keele University’s Institute for Primary Care and Health Sciences has been awarded a major grant of £2.4million from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to investigate the overprescribing of opioid painkillers, and to improve care for patients with persistent pain – without the use of long-term opioids.
This new research programme is led by Keele University’s Professor Christian Mallen, Director of the Institute for Primary Care and Health Sciences and NIHR Research Professor in General Practice, and Dr Julie Ashworth, Senior Lecturer and Consultant in Pain Medicine.
MP Steve Brine, Minister for Public Health and Primary Care, said:
“This exciting research comes at a time when we are tackling overprescribing head on to improve the care of those with long-term conditions and to reduce prescribing costs across the whole NHS. In understanding how we can better intervene at primary care level, we can prevent the complications that arise from long term opioid use which improves the quality of care for patients and reduces the burden on the NHS in the long-term. I would like to congratulate the research team at Keele University on receiving the grant and I look forward to following their progress.”
