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Extending Independent Nurse Prescribing within NHSScotland
ACTIONS FOR EMPLOYER
Notification of qualification to prescribe by nurse's/midwife's employer
The Higher Education Institution will advise the individual's employer of successful or unsuccessful completion of the prescribing programme. For nurses successfully completing the programme, the employer is then advised to take the following actions.
Nurse employers; PCTs or Island Health Boards, will be required
4 to inform the Primary Care Information Group of the Information and Statistics Division (PCIG/ISD) of the nurse prescriber's details using the proforma in Annex A.
There is no requirement for PCIG/ISD to be informed of hospital-based nurse prescribers. GP Practice and PMS Pilots: these employers should pass details to their Primary Care Trust or Island Health Board, where applicable within 48 hours (excluding weekends or Bank Holidays) of receiving notification of a nurse's qualification to prescribe. The Primary Care Trust will then be responsible for informing the PCIG/ISD of GP practice and PMS nurse prescribers using the proforma at Annex A. PCIG will continue in their existing role of assigning prescribers codes to nurse prescribers.
Briefly, the nurse details to be provided on the proforma include:
Trusts notifying PCIG/ISD of new nurse prescribers who work across more than one practice will be required to provide details of the practice within which the nurse is expected to issue the majority of their prescriptions (i.e. their 'principal prescribing practice'). These nurses will receive one prescription pad pre-printed with the prescriber code for this practice and one prescription pad with the prescriber code left blank to cover any additional practices. See also para 51.
Notification of change of nurse prescriber details
Trusts should notify PCIG/ISD of changes of circumstances or personal details of nurse prescribers using the proforma in Annex A. If a nurse prescriber is no longer carrying out prescribing duties (for example, because he/she has left the employment of the PCT or practice, been suspended from the register of nurses or had his/her approval as a prescriber withdrawn for some reason), the PCT should inform PCIG/ISD as soon as possible.
This requirement highlights the need for clear channels of communication, particularly between GP practices/PMS pilots and PCTs. It is the responsibility of the nurse's employer:
to ensure that no further prescription pads are ordered for a nurse who has left employment or who has been suspended from prescribing duties;
to recover, record and securely destroy all unused prescription forms issued to that nurse relating to that employment.
NHS Boards and PCTs should annotate their lists of nurse prescribers with the reasons for any changes, to ensure that an up-to-date record exists.
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