References
Assessing students' confidence in prescribing: contributing facilitators and constraints
Abstract
There is a growing number of non-medical prescribers in the UK. Practitioners working in advanced and specialist roles access university-based non-medical prescribing programmes to enhance their clinical practice. Despite this clinical and cultural shift, there is a paucity of literature and evidence on this issue. Using a mixed-methods approach of a focus group and the Likert survey, this study explored the experiences of specialist practice district nursing students undertaking non-medical prescribing. The findings of the study suggested that while the students felt supported by their teams, university and peers, there were limitations to the supervisors available and supervised prescribing opportunities, with a variance in the experiences of prescribing supervision. Further exploration into the experiences of prescribing supervision is warranted, as is the experience of prescribing students across multiple care settings.
Prescribing in healthcare has historically been a doctor's role. The number of non-medical prescribers, including nurses, pharmacists and allied health professionals, has rapidly increased since 2002 (Brett and Palmer, 2022). However, there is limited data on the significance of non-medical prescribing (Cope et al, 2016). Quantitative data underscores the benefits of non-medical prescribing, particularly in terms of cost reduction and timely treatment. However, a systematic review of nurses, physiotherapists and pharmacists revealed a notable reluctance among non-medical prescribers to engage in prescribing (Edwards et al, 2022). This is despite individual learners completing a comprehensive and thoroughly assessed prescribing course to become non-medical prescribers (Maddox et al, 2016).
Non-medical prescribing was introduced to improve patient safety and professional autonomy (Stewart et al, 2017). Weeks et al (2016) discovered that patient outcomes were equally favourable when cared for by a non-medical prescriber, as compared to their medical counterparts. In an already strained healthcare system, it is essential to deploy non-medical prescribing skills within clinical practice and to identify solutions to the obstacles that impede this practice.
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