Global Challenges for Opioid Use in Care for the Dying Person

This free webinar from the International Collaborative for Best Care for the Dying Person features insights from leading international practitioners in relation to opioid use in end of life care.

PROGRAMME

Is having access to end-of-life anticipatory medications in the home reassuring and helpful?

Dr Ben Bowers

The anticipatory prescribing of injectable medications, including opioids, is widely accepted by health professionals to be key in facilitating effective last-days-of-life symptom control.  In this talk, Ben will give a brief summary of a new updated systematic review of the international evidence concerning anticipatory prescribing for adults in the community.  Ben will then share his recent qualitative reserach investigating patients', informal caregivers' and their clinicians' views and experiences of the prescription and use of anticipatory medications. 

Lack of access to opioids globally is a barrier to optimal palliative care

Professor Jim Cleary

Over 85% of the world's population lack access to opioids for the tratment of pain.  While opioids are critical throughout healthcare, they are especially needed in advanced cancer and at end of life.  The reasons, impact, and potential opportunities to improve balanced access will be discussed.

Questions and Answers

Questions can be submitted using the Chat function during the webinar. 

SPEAKERS

Dr Ben Bowers RN

University of Cambridge, UK

Dr Ben Bowers is a practicing Community Palliative Care Nurse and Wellcome Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the Palliative & End of Life Care Group (PELiCam), University of Cambridge.  He is a Community Nursing Research Consultant with the Queen's Nursing Institute, London.  Ben's recent mixed-methods doctoral research investigated community end-of-life anticipatory prescribing practice and perspectives of this care.  His post-doctoral research interests include improving systems for using end-of-life care medications at home.  Ben is the co-founder of the UK-wide QNI Community Nursing Research Forum.

Professor Jim Cleary MD

Indiana University, USA

Jim Cleary is Professor and Walther Sernior Chair of Supportive Oncology at Indiana Universtiy School of Medicine and Medical Director and Director of Supportive Oncology at Indiana University Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center.  He has led a number of global initiatives in palliative care, including the Global Opioid Policy Initiative that reviewed opioid availability in Africa, Asia, the Carribbean and Latin America, India and the Middle East.  He is a member of the Lancet Commission on Palliative Care and is co-chair of ASCO's Resource Stratified Guidline on Palliative Care; he also serves as a North American Editor of the journal Palliative Medicine.  Jim was honoured recently as one of 30 Global Visionaries in Palliative Care by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Care and was the 2021 recipient of the Floriani Lecture Award from the European Association of Palliative Care.  

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