Society produces clinical governance framework for prescribing
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society has published a clinical governance framework to help ensure that patient safety is an integral part of pharmacist prescribing. The framework is for use by pharmacist prescribers
and organisations throughout Britain that commission or participate
in pharmacist prescribing.
This framework has been developed from the viewpoints of both the individual
pharmacist prescriber and the organisation. For the individual it provides
suggested indicators of good practice for pharmacist prescribing and
examples of good clinical governance practice relating to prescribing.
On the organisational side it looks at the organisational components
of clinical governance and what might need to be put in place within
an organisation to support clinical governance of pharmacist prescribing.
The organisations it is aimed at include primary care organisations,
NHS trusts, the private and voluntary health care sector and all organisations
that employ pharmacist prescribers providing care to both NHS and non-NHS
patients.
The Society’s head of quality improvement, Heidi Wright, said: “The
quality and safety of health care provided to patients is a priority
for all health care professionals. Pharmacists have a variety of opportunities
to provide a broad range of services to patients and improve access and
usage to medicines. Prescribing is a developing and expanding role for
pharmacists and it is important that it is conducted in a safe and effective
manner.
“This clinical governance framework should be used in conjunction
with the competency framework for pharmacist supplementary prescribers
developed
by the National Prescribing Centre. Many of the recommendations in the
Society’s clinical governance framework need to be implemented
as part of the wider organisational work on managing prescribing and
medicines management.”
The guidance is available from the clinical
governance section of the
Society’s website. Further information
is available from Heidi Wright (tel 020 7572 2602; e-mail heidi.wright@rpsgb.org).
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal