The following guidance must be adhered to when prescribing, dispensing or administering opioid medicines:
☛  Confirm any recent opioid dose, formulation, frequency of administration and any other analgesic prescribed for the patient.
☛  Ensure where a dose increase is intended, that the calculated dose is safe for the patient. Not normally more than 50% higher than the previous dose.
☛  Check the usual starting dose, frequency of administration, standard dosing increments, symptoms of overdose, and common side effects of that medicine and formulation.
☛  Ensure that naloxone (the antidote to opioid medicines) is available in the clinical area, to treat overdose and reverse unwanted, severe adverse effects.
☛  In palliative care and chronic opioid use give lower doses of naloxone to carefully manage opioid-induced respiratory depression and sedation, while maintaining adequate analgesia:
		– 100 to 200 micrograms IV stat. If respiratory response is inadequate, give 100 micrograms every 2 minutes.
		– Further doses may be necessary at one to two hour intervals especially when the opioid causing the toxicity has a long half life.
		https://web.archive.org/web/20200811153615/https://mm.wirral.nhs.uk/document_uploads/guidelines/CareoftheDying-non-renal-v14_67703.pdf