The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7226 p768
30 November 2002

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DoH: Supplementary prescribing (more)

Pharmacists' prescribing training to start in spring

Training for pharmacists to become supplementary prescribers will start in the spring of 2003, the Department of Health announced last week.

Regulations to permit pharmacist prescribing should be laid before Parliament ahead of its Christmas recess.

Lord Hunt, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, visited an anticoagulant clinic at Guy's Hospital, London, on 21 November to mark the official go ahead for pharmacist prescribing and an extension of nurse prescribing (PJ, 23 November, p731). He said: "Staff will undergo comprehensive training before becoming supplementary prescribers. We aim to have up to 1,000 pharmacists and up to 10,000 nurses trained by the end of 2004." He said that further guidance will be issued in the new year. The Journal will take a closer look at the issue at that time.

According to the Department of Health, patients with asthma, diabetes, coronary heart disease and high blood pressure are likely to be among the first to benefit with quicker access to medicines. These patients will be able to have their medicines' doses, frequencies and formulations adjusted within limits set down in a written clinical management plan.