The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7497 p447
12 April 2008

Society summary

Pharmacy prescribers to be recognised by use of postnominal initials

The Council agreed at the April Council meeting that the postnominal letters to be used by pharmacist prescribers should reflect their prescribing status. Thus independent prescribers may use MRPharmS(IPresc) and supplementary prescribers may use MRPharmS(SPresc).

The Council made that decision after hearing from Peter Wilson, the Society’s head of postregistration, that Department of Health solicitors had reservations about not making a distinction between the two types of pharmacist prescriber. The Council had previously agreed that the postnominal would be MRPharmS(Presc) for any prescriber.

However, the Department of Health advised that if one postnominal were used to cover two Register annotations, prosecution for misusing the postnominal could be impossible as the prosecuting authority could never prove which sort of prescriber a miscreant was pretending to be.

Mr Wilson suggested that the previously agreed postnominal abbreviation be split into separate ones for independent and supplementary prescribers. The Council agreed.