Hospital Pharmacist
Vol 10 No 11 p479
December 2003

Hospital Pharmacist Conference summary

Designated medical practitioners

Views on why pharmacists should prescribe, what training they should receive, how supplementary prescribing will work in practice and what legal responsibilites prescribing brings were all presented at the seventh annual Hospital Pharmacist conference held in London on 30 October. Gareth Jones and Rachel Graham (on the staff of Hospital Pharmacist) report

Pharmacists undertaking supplementary prescribing training must find a designated medical practitioner (DMP) to support their training, who must be experienced in the field of practice in which the pharmacist wants to work, and be experienced in training, supervision and assessment of trainees. Anne Lovejoy, from the Department of Pharmacy at King’s College, outlined the role of the DMP, often known as the mentor.

The DMP must develop a learning contract with the trainee, sign-off a competency assessment for supplementary prescribing, verify attendance at clinical practice sessions and sign the summative assessment form to indicate that the student has passed their practice placement. The National Prescribing Centre (NPC) competency framework is used at King’s. The DMP is therefore asked to state, with examples, that the trainee is competent in the five main areas detailed in this framework, which are: clinical and pharmaceutical knowledge, establishing options for prescribing, communicating with patients, prescribing safely and prescribing professionally.