Controlled drug question

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Specializes in ICU, Haemodialysis, acute medicine and s.

I was working on a ward at the weekend and when I asked someone to check out some oromorph 20mg with me they told me it was kept in the trolley and only had to be signed by one person, and that anything under 20mg didn't need to be kept locked away or double signed as it wasn't a controlled drug. i must admit this was a new one on me and it felt very strange ding it, but apparently there are loads of wards in my trust that practice this and have done so for a while. i guess i missed something being announced about this along the way because where i used to work all our Oromorph was classed as controlled and had to be double signed.

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Specializes in Advanced Practice, surgery.

Suzanne we treat oromorph as a controlled drug with 2 nurses to sign it out.

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Specializes in ICU, Haemodialysis, acute medicine and s.
Suzanne we treat oromorph as a controlled drug with 2 nurses to sign it out.

You see that is what I have always practiced and thought was correct, however i asked to see the policy on the ward with regards not keeping it locked up and single checking and it was there in black and white.

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Specializes in Spinal Cord injuries, Emergency+EMS.

10 mg in 5ml oramorph is only PoM although many places treat it as a CD ... the cut off is something like 14mg in 5 ml

edited to add

there seems to be a problem over medicines management knowledge ... there's quite a bit of information in the front of the BNF about controlled drugs stuff...

do you want to here someonething else crazy - codiene is actually class b under the misuse of drugs act, but certain prepations are 'p'list ( e.g. 8/500 co codamol and some codiene containing cough medicine)

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Specializes in med/surg.

In the NHS it was treated as a controlled drug on all the wards I worked on but where I am now they don't treat it as such! When I started working there I locked it in the controlled drug cupboard but it is still not included in the check book. I spoke to the pharmacy about it but they were & still are adamant that it does not have to be kept as a controlled drug. I still disagree - it's morphine plain & simple & morphine is a controlled drug!

A patient may only be on 10mg but the bottle contains many more doses than just one!

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Specializes in renal,peritoneal dialysis, medicine.

its not controlled on my ward its a bottle in the drugs trolley

or in 5ml plastic vial

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Specializes in MSc in Anesthetics.

hi suzanne7575,

its a controlled drug on my ward regardless of dose, its morphine!!! very strange, however different places may have different policies. you just keep yourself right and document, document, document.

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Specializes in renal,peritoneal dialysis, medicine.

what about temazepam?

thats not controlled in my hospital either, but it used to be

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Specializes in ICU, Haemodialysis, acute medicine and s.
what about temazepam?

thats not controlled in my hospital either, but it used to be

Temazepam is still controlled here in Tayside

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temazepam is a controlled drug in manchester

all strong opiates morphine/fentayl and iv codeine

all double signed (bar our computer system in A&E where u need a accoutn and pin and enter the pt name drug and dose.)

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Specializes in med/surg.

We have a temazepam book, it's separate to the controlled drug book but is essentially the same thing.

I can't get my head around the fact that they sort of control temazepam but are quite happy to leave 200ml bottles of oramorph in the general drugs cupboard.

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Specializes in renal,peritoneal dialysis, medicine.

when did any procedure in the NHS make sense though? lmao

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