Non-Medical Prescribing (V300)

You'll already be a registered nurse, midwife, pharmacist, physiotherapist, paramedic, chiropodist, podiatrist, dietician, diagnostic or therapeutic radiographer, and this course may interest you because there is a recognised need for you to prescribe within your clinical practice.

You’ll learn to prescribe safely, appropriately and cost-effectively. On successful completion, you can be annotated/registered with your Professional Body as an independent and supplementary prescriber* and you will be qualified to prescribe medications within your field of competence.

Independent prescribers are practitioners responsible and accountable for the assessment of patients with previously undiagnosed or diagnosed conditions and for decisions about the clinical management required, including prescribing.” BNF, 2020 (https://bnf.nice.org.uk/guidance/non-medical-prescribing.html)

Supplementary prescribing is a partnership between an independent prescriber (a doctor or a dentist) and a supplementary prescriber to implement an agreed Clinical Management Plan for an individual patient with that patient’s agreement.” BNF, 2020 (https://bnf.nice.org.uk/guidance/non-medical-prescribing.html)

Important notes

• Please note that Diagnostic Radiographers and Dieticians can only prescribe as a Supplementary Prescriber.
• You must ensure that you check which medications you can prescribe according to UK legislation and your own professional registration (https://bnf.nice.org.uk/guidance/non-medical-prescribing.html)

How you'll learn

This module takes place over two trimesters, including 25 academic study days (26 days for pharmacists). Twelve of the academic study days are face-to-face classroom sessions (pharmacists have an additional clinical skills study day – in Chelmsford for ALL cohorts). Twelve of the academic study days are flexible, self-directed study sessions each equivalent to six hours of study.

• The first six of these study days are designed to support lectures. We have indicated when these should be taken in the sample timetable and in the dates section for each specific cohort.
• The remaining six self-directed study days are for academic literature research to support your specialist clinical role and can be taken at any time in the second trimester.
• There will be one day for exams.
• You'll also need to complete 72 hours of clinical practice (90 hours for pharmacists) to demonstrate clinical competency in consulting, diagnosing and prescribing for service users.

Core content

The core teaching will involve an introduction to pharmacology and the generic aspects of prescribing. Although we don’t cover therapeutic indications, we’ll refer to common drugs throughout the module to demonstrate key pharmacological principals. The taught content will include:

• Application of consultation and clinical assessment within the prescribing context
• Critical application of knowledge of Pharmacology – pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics
• Prescribing for special risk groups including children, the elderly, pregnancy and breast feeding
• Drug interactions and adverse events
• Holistic approach to prescribing including the Bio-psycho-social aspects of prescribing
• Effective medicines management
• Prescribing within the inter-professional team
• Legal and ethical issues, including professional accountability.

In addition to the generic taught content you’ll have the opportunity to learn about medications specific to your specialist area of practice; through your clinical practice hours and 6 days of self-directed academic research.

Practice Assessment

In partnership with your employer, you must identify a suitable Practice Assessor.

A Practice Assessor is a registered healthcare professional with a prescribing qualification and a minimum of 3 years’ recent prescribing experience in this role; e.g. a doctor, nurse, pharmacist or other professionally registered, V300 trained independent prescriber.

Nursing and midwifery applicants

• In conjunction with your Practice Assessor, you must identify suitable Practice Supervisor(s) to support their practice learning.
• Practice Supervisors should also be registered V300 independent/supplementary prescribers (or equivalent) with at least 1 year of experience in this role.
• In exceptional circumstances (for example, where there is limited access to non-medical prescribers) nurses/midwives can request from the module lead that the same person acts as both Practice Assessor and Practice Supervisor (https://www.nmc.org.uk/standards/standards-for-post-registration/standards-for-prescribers).

Pharmacists and allied healthcare professionals:

• The Practice Assessor role is referred to as the “Designated Prescribing Practitioner (DPP)” by the GPhC and HCPC.
• The DPP can undertake the role of both Practice Assessor and Practice Supervisor. However, students are encouraged to seek one or more Practice Supervisors for a more diverse learning experience. (https://www.pharmacyregulation.org/sites/default/files/document/standards-for-the-education-and-training-of-pharmacist-independent-prescribers-january-19.pdf) (https://www.hcpc-uk.org/standards/standards-relevant-to-education-and-training/standards-for-prescribing/)

As an NMC or HCPC registrant you will need to demonstrate a minimum of 72 hours of supervised clinical practice, at least 22 hours of which must be with your Practice Assessor.

As a GPhC registrant you will need to demonstrate a minimum of 90 hours of supervised clinical practice, at least 28 hours of which must be with your Practice Assessor.

The remaining clinical hours must be spent with a Practice Supervisor (see above).

Your Practice Assessor, along with your Academic Assessor (module tutor or module lead) is responsible for signing you off as a competent and safe prescriber. As such you will need to make sure you keep accurate records of your clinical placement hours.

Assessment

Your success on this programme will be determined on the basis of:

1. A practice assessment document consisting of:

• a practice log demonstrating the minimum required practice clinical supervision hours
• an assessment of competency against the Royal Pharmaceutical Society single competency framework (2016) which has been adopted as the common standard for all independent prescribing programs (NMC, 2018; HPCP, 2016; GPhC, 2019)
• completion of a Clinical Management Plan (CMP) to demonstrate an understanding of supplementary prescribing.

2. A calculations examination:

• 30-minute unseen examination
• 100% pass mark will (GPhC, 2019; NMC, 2019)

3. An unseen pharmacology examination:

• 90-minute unseen examination
• short answer questions and completion of an FP-10 prescription
• 80% pass mark (GPhC, 2019; NMC, 2019)

4. A critical case study:

• a 2,000-word critical analysis essay based on a patient prescribing episode. This can be either an Independent Prescribing Episode or a Supplementary Prescribing Episode (depending on how your health care professional body allows you to prescribe)
• please note that demonstration of unsafe practice in any of the assessments will result in a referral (second attempt required) for NMC and HCPC students or automatic failure (no second attempt allowed) for GPhC students.