Guild backs SafeScript as better bet for national RTPM system

High time this is up and rolling, and I am very pleased at the prospect. For one, it will save clinical time. If you have to give the new patient the 'benefit of the doubt' when they announce on arrival - or 7 minute into the consultation that they want a narcotic - and you have to conduct a careful interview to see if what they say is the truth, it will cost clinical time. Phoning 'doctor shopping' and/or DDU (I practice in Queensland) takes time, and in the circumstance must be done in front of the patient, with a possible direction 'I told you so, so give me the script' - takes more time. Once it is obvious to all patients who (rightly or wrongly) request a narcotic script, that their S8 use habits will be inevitably, immediately disclosed, the opportunity to 'snow' the GP will be very much reduced. But that means addicts who have been playing games may find it more difficult to access the medications they are dependent on. There is likely to be a upsurge in the importation and distribution of illicit narcotics, and the consequent costs of police embargo and detection, legal and court costs of criminal prosecutions, the extended incarceration of drug mules and the lower levels of the distribution operatives. But, thankfully, that is all outside of medical practice.