Principles of pain control in palliative care for adults. Guidance prepared by a Working Group of the Ethical Issues in Medicine Committee of the Royal College of Physicians.

Specialist palliative care is now widely available and there are many good textbooks of palliative medicine. But some patients still suffer pain needlessly. Clinicians may not know how to use analgesia appropriately or may be anxious about giving an adequate dose of strong opioids such as morphine. This brief outline is intended to make the principles of pain control readily available to all clinicians who look after terminally ill patients. It applies to patients with non-malignant disease as well as to those with advanced cancer.