Woman, 58, dies after overdosing on ‘addictive’ prescription & OTC painkillers – as GP’s warned ‘be alert’

A CORONER has issued a warning to GPs over prescribing large doses of painkillers taken by thousands of Brits following a woman’s death.

Alison Thomas, 58, collected a “large amount” of her prescribed medication including codeine and gabapentin in December 2025 after claiming she was visiting for over a month during the holiday period.

The were normally prescribed on a weekly basis by her because of the “known risk of abuse” and she “was known to abuse prescription medications and had taken overdoses in the past”.

Alison, who had a mental history and the lung condition , had also acquired another over the counter medicine, which is available to purchase from pharmacies.

The GP surgery in had a “medicines management policy”, an inquest found.

But, “there were no policies in place at the time to describe the management of long term benzodiazepine, opioids or gabapentinoids and the policy in place does not address the issue,” coroner Sean Cummings said.

On December 29, Alison was tragically pronounced dead at home and had taken a “large amount of different prescribed and over the counter medication”.

Mr Cummings concluded that the surgery’s medicines management policy “contained no provision addressing the safe prescribing, review, monitoring, or quantity-control of long- term combined benzodiazepine, opioid, or gabapentinoid medication.

“This is so despite these classes of medicine being the specific subject of extensive national guidance.”

The acknowledges that gabapentinoids, known as GABAs, and that patients to avoid withdrawal symptoms, including nausea, an increased heart rate and even seizures.

“At the time of Inquest there are still no policies addressing this,” Mr Cummings added.

“I was told this was being addressed but it transpired this was at a very early stage.

“There were no policies in place in December 2025 to address the issue of patients who are known to misuse prescription medications requesting larger than usual amounts.”

In a Prevention of Future Death Report , he also wrote: “At the time of Alison Thomas’ death the practice had no policy governing how requests for larger-than-usual quantities of medication for travel purposes from patients known to misuse prescription medicines.

“There is a risk that future deaths could occur if patients with this combination of medication and risk factors are not systematically identified and reviewed.”

In response, the GP practice said: “The Practice has taken the concerns expressed in the report extremely seriously.

“GP Partners at the Practice will be responsible for the oversight of the delivery of these actions through monthly clinical meetings. Quarterly and annual audits will also be completed.”

They added that the surgery had now developed a comprehensive Medicines Management and Safe Prescribing Policy that will be reviewed annually.

Experts have long warned about the risks .

Codeine is an opioid — a class of painkillers in the same family as morphine, heroin and fentanyl.

Like with other opioids, .

In 2024, figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), and cited by the drugs watchdog the MHRA, revealed that deaths involving codeine more than doubled in a decade, jumping from 88 in 2011 to 200 in 2021.

Health officials have also raised the alarm over prescription rates of opioids, benzodiazepines and gabapentinoids — a family of pain medications that includes gabapentin.

But evidence suggests that gabapentinoids, widely thought to be less addictive than its alternatives, may be just as dangerous.

They were first licensed as a medicine to stop seizures, and then for neuropathic or nerve pain because it blocks pain signals in the brain.

Patients taking it also reported feeling calmer, sparking doctors to start offering it for anxiety.

Yet they can also be given “off-label” (to treat a condition for which they’re not licensed) for things such as lower back pain — and for which there is little or no evidence that they work.

Earlier this year, the MHRA published its own review into warnings regarding addiction, dependence, withdrawal, and tolerance for gabapentin and benzodiazepines.

The UK’s drugs regulator concluded that they were “known to pose risks of addiction, dependency, withdrawal and tolerance” and patient information leaflets would have strengthened warnings of the risks.

“Prior to starting treatment with these medicines, a discussion should be held with patients to put in place a strategy for reducing or ending treatment,” the MHRA added.

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