About this toolkit

Scottish Government Effective Prescribing & Therapeutics Division epandt@gov.scot 

Content has been checked for accessibility in line with the relevant RDS standard operating procedures.

The app is compliant with Android and Apple accessibility standards for native mobile apps. The website is compliant with WC3A 2.0 standards.

The guidance was developed with an expert short life working group comprising representatives from Scottish Government, NHS Scotland, third sector, patient groups and experts by experience.

The draft of this guidance was published for public consultation in September 2025 and following review, the final guidance was agreed by the group and signed off by the Head of Effective Prescribing and Therapeutics on 16 February 2026.

This guidance was co-signed by the Chief Medical Officer.

Authors

• Chronic pain Guidance Short Life Working Group
• Effective Prescribing and Therapeutics – Scottish Government

Review and sign-off of content

Any necessary updates will be proposed by Effective Prescribing and Therapeutics and signed off by the lead clinician.

If there is an external request from a senior stakeholder to make an update, Effective Prescribing and Therapeutics will review this, and agree to any necessary amendments.

Determining the review date(s) for content

The guidance is dated 2026-2029 and will be reviewed at the end of this period by Effective Prescribing and Therapeutics

The head of Effective Prescribing and Therapeutics would sign off any updated content.

Content in this toolkit is copyrighted to Scottish Government and its partners unless otherwise stated where agreement to reproduce has been obtained, and the relevant credit and acknowledgement information is included.

Icons are sourced from Flaticon.com, accessed through the licence held by Tactuum Ltd as software provider of the RDS platform. 

The working group that developed the guidance comprised clinical experts from across Scotland, reviewing relevant evidence as each section was written and to formulate a series of recommendations as a result.

We have provided an indication on the strength of recommendations and guidance, which indicates the type of evidence that the recommendation is based on. The categories follow SIGN guidance terminology, categorising recommendations as strong, conditional or a good practice point.

Emails for app enquiries or feedback should be sent to epandt@gov.scot

Messages received through the RDS feedback form will be forwarded by the RDS team to the key contacts.

The content has been risk assessed:

• Potential Risk - Guidance no longer current. In consequence, content may be out of date and staff do not get optimal guidance.
• Mitigation – Guidance is usually written from the viewpoint of being relevant and applicable for at least three years. Therefore review date for guidance content will be three years.

Effective Prescribing and Therapeutics staff have responsibility for checking/testing all toolkit content.

User testing has been conducted to assure usability, navigation, readability, and appropriate formatting.