BMJ  2007;335:316 (18 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.39285.788808.3B

Editorials

Developing nurse prescribing in the UK

Prescribing should be integrated into education for advanced nursing practice

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The United Kingdom has seen a recent major expansion in the scope of nurse prescribing, reflecting government policy¹ and the international trend towards advanced nursing practice.² In the 1990s it became possible for community based nurses to prescribe independently from a limited formulary, thereby facilitating their traditional roles such as wound management and bowel care. From 2000, further changes in legislation radically altered the professional restrictions on prescribing, and since May 2006 independent nurse prescribers in England have been able to "prescribe any licensed medicine for any medical condition within their competence."³ Each stage of the development of nurse prescribing in the UK has had its advocates and detractors, but this recent initiative has proved the most controversial, fuelling debate about the adequacy of training of nurse prescribers and risks to patient safety.⁴

The training for independent nurse prescribers consists of a standalone course of 26 days of theory, 12 . . . [Full text of this article]

University of Nottingham, Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham NG7 2UH

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Extended prescribing by UK nurses and pharmacists

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BMJ 2005 331: 1154-1155. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Cooper, R., Anderson, C., Avery, T., Bissell, P., Guillaume, L., Hutchinson, A., Lymn, J., Murphy, E., Ratcliffe, J., Ward, P. (2008). Stakeholders' views of UK nurse and pharmacist supplementary prescribing. J Health Serv Res Policy 13: 215-221 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• Tomar, R., Jakovljevic, T., Brimblecombe, N. (2008). Psychiatrists' and nurses' views of mental health nurse supplementary prescribing: a survey. Psychiatr. Bull. 32: 364-365 [Abstract] [Full text]  

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