The right for registered nurses to prescribe comes into force on September 20 and just days later applications open for nurses seeking to be the first RN prescribers.
The Nursing Council has now posted on its website the application pathway process for suitably qualified registered nurses (RNs) to apply for authorisation to prescribe a limited list of medicines used in long-term and common conditions.
The main pathway to RN prescribing rights will be through the new postgraduate diploma in prescribing being offered next year but some nurses who have already completed a prescribing practicum and other related papers as part of their clinical master's degree or postgraduate diploma can lodge an application with the Council from October 1.
The Council has reported that a number of interested nurses have been in contact and it is telling applicants that they will hear within 20 working days of applying whether they have been successful. So the first RN prescriber under the new regulations should be signing scripts sometime in October.
The first nurse practitioner prescriber was authorised in 2003 and NPs now have the same autonomous prescribing status as dentists and doctors.
Diabetes clinical nurse specialists have been prescribing as part of a collaborative team for the past five years but the new regulations open the doors to suitably qualified nurses working in a general practice to district nursing and specialist outpatient clinics to rural nurse specialists to become prescribers as long as they are working collaboratively and have access to a prescribing mentor (see full requirements below)
If prescribing applicants are successful the online register (www.nursingcouncil.org.nz) will be updated so members of the public, employers and pharmacists can check whether a nurse is authorised to prescribe.
Meanwhile the diabetes nurses specialist currently authorised to prescribe under the diabetes nurse prescribing regulations will have their prescribing authority transferred under the new broader regulations but will have a condition placed on their scope of practice that they can "only prescribe in diabetes health under the supervision of a medical practitioner" unless they gain further qualifications.
RN prescriber workplace requirements
Registered nurses applying for authorisation to prescribe in primary health and specialty teams must have the following in place in their clinical area:
- Employer support to develop a role that permits registered nurses to assess and manage patients e.g. nurse led clinics
- A collaborative multidisciplinary team model
- Access to peer review, medicines audit and continuing education
- Authority to order and obtain results of laboratory tests
- Quality management systems in place including policies, processes and evidence of
- continuous quality improvement
- Established links to senior nursing support and other nurse prescribers
- Access to a minimum of one authorised prescriber, who will act as a mentor and
- supervisor; Registered nurse prescribers will initially have a condition included in their scope of practice to complete 12 months of supervised prescribing practice;
- Approval from the Service Manager of the DHB, or PHO, or other employer
- Prescribing mentor who provide supervision for the first year of prescribing practice.
RN prescriber qualification requirements
- A current practising certificate
- Three years full time equivalent practice (with at least one year of the total practice in New Zealand) in the area the nurse intends to prescribe in
- Completion of a Council approved postgraduate diploma in registered nurse prescribing for long term and common conditions or equivalent qualification (alternative pathway).
Source: Nursing Council of New Zealand
Post your comment
Comments
No one has commented on this page yet.
RSS feed for comments on this page | RSS feed for all comments