Chapter 20 - Non-Medical Prescribing

Abstract

According to the DOH, the supplementary prescribing program is designed “to ease the burden on doctors and improve access to medicines.” Supplementary prescribing involves a voluntary partnership between an independent prescriber, who must be a doctor or dentist, and a supplementary prescriber to implement an agreed patient-specific clinical management plan (CMP) with the patient's agreement. Before supplementary prescribing can take place, it is obligatory for an agreed CMP to be in place, relating to a named patient and to that patient's specific condition(s) to be managed by the supplementary prescriber. This should be included in the patient record. In March 2006, the DOH announced that later in the year, it would introduce legislation to allow Extended Formulary Nurse Prescribers (and pharmacist-independent prescribers) to prescribe any licensed medicine for any medical condition. The Extended Formulary will then cease to exist. The nurse prescribers will be known as Independent Nurse Prescribers. Under the new scheme, the nurses prescribing from the Nurse Prescribers Formulary for District Nurses and Health Visitors will in future be called Community Practitioner Nurse Prescribers.