The use of pain medication, including potentially addictive opioids, has risen significantly in Ireland in recent years, new research shows.<\/p>\n
The study, carried out by the Royal College of Surgeons, found that Irish people use more pain medication than patients in England.<\/p>\n
It found the prescribing of pain medications in Ireland rose significantly between 2014 and 2022.<\/p>\n
The use of opioids, including medicines like Codeine and Oxycodone, increased by about 25% over the period and prescriptions for paracetamol rose by 50%.<\/p>\n
The study focused on patients in Ireland with a medical card, representing about 1.3 million people\u2013 and on data from all GP practices in England.<\/p>\n
It found that for every 1,000 patients in 2022, more than 1,200 prescriptions for opioids were issued.<\/p>\n
In contrast, England experienced declining use across most classes of pain medications during this time.<\/p>\n
Researchers say long waiting lists for orthopaedic surgery in Ireland, such as hip and knee replacements, could be to blame for the surge in prescriptions<\/p>\n
They also say the study raised questions about healthcare access and the availability of non-drug options to manage pain<\/p>\n
The study says that in England there is greater access to healthcare services, including pain clinics and more non-drug options such as physical therapy through the NHS.<\/p>\n
They say there are not as many of these services Ireland could be contributing to a greater reliance on medication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The use of pain medication, including potentially addictive opioids, has risen significantly in Ireland in recent years, new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-53494","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}