From October 1994 qualified district nurses and health visitors from eight demonstration sites in England have been able to prescribe from a limited list of formulary items. Data collected from nurses formed only one part of the evaluation of nurse prescribing. These data highlighted a number of areas where prescribing nurses were faced with difficult decisions. A number of authors have conside...

Introduction and Background The Cumberlege Report (1986) identified that community nurses were using a lot of time waiting for prescriptions to be written by General Practitioners once they had already identified their patients’ needs (Courtney 2007). It was suggested that limited prescribing should be allowed for district nurses and health visitors, especially around long term conditions (Hump...

Extended nurse prescribing is now a reality and its particular application to specialist palliative care nurses will allow them to formalize their practice of advising doctors on medication régimes and to work more autonomously. An education programme in a validated university is now operating for nurses who wish to become extended formulary nurse prescribers. Extended nurse prescribing for pal...

Aim: To compare nurse prescribers and non-prescribers managing people with diabetes in English general practice regarding: a) characteristics of patients, b) activities and processes of care, c) patient outcomes (self-management, clinical indicators, satisfaction), d) resource implications and costs Background: Over 35,000 nurses in United Kingdom are able to prescribe the same medicines as doc...

Recent advances in legislation have enabled nurses in the United Kingdom (UK) to become Nurse Independent and Supplementary Prescribers (NISP). The NISP can assess, diagnose and independently prescribe any licensed medicine within their area of competence. This change has meant the number of nurse prescribers in disease specific areas has increased. This study set out to assess the number of Ep...

BACKGROUND A growing number of countries legislate for nurses to have medication prescribing authority although it is a contested issue. The UK is one of these countries, giving authority to nurses with additional qualifications since 1992 and incrementally widened the scope of nurse prescribing, most recently in 2006. The policy intention for primary care was to improve efficiency in service d...

Nurse prescribing is now possible in mental health care settings since the introduction of supplementary prescribing. The impact that supplementary prescribing will have on mental health service users, mental health services, mental health nurses and their educational preparation needs to be addressed by service providers, higher education institutions and workforce development confederations.