Sunday, April 01, 2007

Nurses Struggle in New Prescribing Role



A study of 18 qualified nurse prescribers and 7 nurses undertaking a prescribing course were presented with 4 clinical scenarios such as "A 65 year old man asks if he can take some Aspirin for his severe pain due to gout.How would you proceed?"
The majority were "unable to identify the issues" involved in the 4 scenarios and "failed to provie an acceptable solution to the problem"
In interviews one nurse critisied her training on pharmacology as "really awful" .
About 50% of study participants scored zero in all scenarios.
The study was lead by Dr Maxine Offredy, reader in Primary Care at the University of Hertfordshire.
This raises further doubts about the scope and skills of nurse practitioners. One of the problems is the basic training of nurses in subjects such as biochemistry, physiology and pharmacology is superficial. This leaves them vulnerable when they start to practice independently. Of course many nurse prescribers only complete the course so that they can prescribe in a very narrow area of expertise.This is sensible. It is difficult to see how current nurse prescribing courses adequately equip them for work in more generalised diagnostic and therapeutic area such as primary care

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Clearly a very disgruntled GP... and cosmetic doctor who may i suggest is slightly threatened by such 'hand maidens' gaining the respect they deserve as autonomous practitioners. I am currently studying the nurse prescribers course and would like to point out Independant nurse prescribers have to endure intense examinations inclusive of a 100% pass rate in drug calculations and a 80% pass rate in a pharamacology examination...how ironic; this is more than what is expected for a doctor. I train doctors, surgeons dentists and nurses in injectable treatments across the country and did believe such outdated & old school beliefs were a thing of the past... in fact they are....your on your own with this one i'm afraid

Paul Charlson said...

I have no problem with nurse prescribers but in my experience it is themselves who limit their scope due to lack of confidence.

It appears that the previous commenter has not read the blog I am happy with any clinician doing what ever they are qualified and feel confident to do.


The study I refer to was based on comments by nurse prescribers not by doctors. They feel unprepared by the course Interestingly I know exactly what training is needed for the course as my wife did the course. The maths calculations are frankly simple so that hardly counts. The course is quite hard but not comparable with a preclinical medical training

Do I detect a chip on one's shoulder?

As for competition thats a fact of life and the clients will decide what they want !! Mine like a doctor others might want a nurse its not a big deal!