NURSE PRESCRIBING – NOT ONLY IMPROVES PATIENT EXPERIENCE BUT IS A REMEDY FOR RISING HEALTH COSTS

Background—Prescribing of medicines has traditionally been a GP/medically dominated activity within the English National Health Service (NHS). However, since 1994, UK government policies have focused on expanding the prescribing remit to include nurses, pharmacists, podiatrists, physiotherapists and other non-medical health professionals. Such practice is known as Non-Medical Prescribing or NMP in England and Nurse Prescribing in many other countries. It has helped meet the demands on health care and increased the capacity of health services to deliver more accessible and higher quality care to patients. The provision of efficient access to medicines for patients by expanding the role of existing health care professionals has been evidenced to show an improvement in patient experience, patient safety, cost efficiencies and support of multi-disciplinary teams. The results are reduced risk of harm to the patient, enhanced patient experience and better compliance and monitoring of the therapeutic impact of medication and early identification of harms and risks.