Prescribing opioids or benzodiazepines to aged care residents or palliative patients would no longer require logging in to script monitoring software under a Queensland Government proposal to ease the administrative burden on GPs.

In Queensland, doctors must check their patient’s prescribing history if the government’s QScript software sends an amber or red alert, meaning the patient was already prescribed a monitored drug.

Monitored drugs include all S8 drugs, all benzodiazepines and a further seven S4 drugs, such as pregabalin or codeine.

But Queensland Health has proposed new exemptions, including emergencies; residential aged care patients; inpatients; prisoners; patients deemed eligible for voluntary assisted dying; or prescribing for end-of-life care: defined as a patient with a condition expected to cause death within 12 months.