The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7205 p5
6 July 2002

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National Pharmaceutical Association (www.npa.co.uk)

NPA supports supplementary prescribing plan

Government proposals to allow pharmacists to be supplementary prescribers (PJ, 20 April, p521) have been generally supported by the National Pharmaceutical Association.

Although they endorsed most of the proposals, NPA board members decided at their June meeting that they strongly opposed the principle set out in the consultation paper that prescribing and dispensing responsibilities should be kept separate. Separation is not needed because two health professionals will be involved in the care of patients, the NPA believes.

In general, the NPA supports all the proposed legislative requirements and agrees with the recommendation that supplementary prescribing should not be restricted to a specific list of clinical conditions because flexibility was needed where patients had multiple conditions, all of which might be managed by a supplementary prescriber.

There is also NPA support for the proposal that the range of medicines suitable for supplementary prescribing should not be restricted.

However, there is concern at the NPA over possible training and accreditation requirements for pharmacists and nurses to become supplementary prescribers. Board members believe that community pharmacists will be at a distinct disadvantage if required to undertake a minimum number of days of teaching contact time. They believe that distance learning will be a more appropriate route and that the key issue is for pharmacists to be able to demonstrate core competencies if they want to become supplementary prescribers.