Supplementary prescribers to get CD access
Pharmacists who are supplementary prescribers will be able to prescribe Controlled Drugs from 14 March.
From that date, the Misuse
of Drugs Amendment Regulations 2005 will add
supplementary prescribers to the list of people authorised to write prescriptions
for CDs, providing they are acting in accordance with a clinical management
plan.
The step has been welcomed as filling a gap in the service that pharmacist
supplementary prescribers, particularly those working in palliative care,
can provide.
Margaret Hook, principal pharmacist at St Peter’s Hospice, Bristol,
said: “This will revolutionise my prescribing and allow me fully
to use my new skills. At the moment I cannot prescribe all the medication
some patients need and have to ask one of our doctors to take responsibility
for the Controlled Drug prescribing. The whole point of my completing
the supplementary prescribers course was to enable me to prescribe for
my patients and release doctors’ time to spend on other aspects
of hospice care.”
David Pruce, director of practice and quality improvement at the Royal
Pharmaceutical Society, said that allowing supplementary prescribers
to prescribe CDs was a logical step.
“We are supportive of the idea if there are adequate safeguards
in place. Those safeguards are provided by clinical management plans,” he
said.
Mr Pruce added that giving supplementary prescribers access to CDs had
been delayed because of the Shipman
Inquiry. |
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