PURPOSE.  This article aims to discuss the growth of mental health nurse (MHN) prescribing in the United Kingdom as an exemplar for readers to compare progress in their own countries and context. This study also aims to provide a historical overview of this process in the United Kingdom where MHNs prescribe safely and competently. CONCLUSIONS.  Finally, evidence has shown that MHNs with prescriptive authority are competent when prescribing when compared to psychiatrists. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS.  Despite organizational barriers and educational concerns, MHN prescribing is becoming embedded in the healthcare context in the United Kingdom.

Aims This survey audited and evaluated the experiences of mental health nurses who had undergone the assessment of their competence in the administration of medicines using established assessment frameworks.Background Medicines management activities have at times been widely criticised. This paper suggests that joint collaborations between HEIs and the NHS in education and training can sequentially start to address some of these criticisms.

SummaryThe role of the Pharmaceutical Industry within healthcare has been a debate amongst our medical colleagues for the past decade. However, with the growing number of nurses who are now qualified to prescribe, this controversial aspect of professional practice is becoming an area of interest to nurses. This article reviews some of the literature on prescribing and the pharmaceutical Industry, in an attempt to raise nurses awareness. Nurses have skills that are central to their education of assessment and evaluation. It argues that nurses are well placed to utilise these skills to identify the influences of the Pharmaceutical Industry. The role of the Pharmaceutical Industry in professional development is debated, suggesting that nurses have the skills to analyse the potential impact of this form of education. Concepts of Ethics are discussed in relation to prescribing, patient care and professional education and practice.

This article describes how one NHS trust in northern England developed the advanced nurse practitioner (ANP) role within its memory services. It discusses how ANP roles were developed and implemented across four localities of a large NHS trust that provides a number of locally based memory services to improve the diagnostic pathway for people referred to the service and their carers. Advanced practice is considered more broadly followed by a review of the literature related to the role of the ANP and non-medical prescriber in mental health and, more specifically, memory assessment and diagnostic services. Challenges to gaining the requisite competency to work as an ANP are discussed. The need for a clear agreed strategy to ensure practitioner competence and effective governance for the introduction of these roles is described. It is argued that using this model allowed for mental health nurses within memory services to make a major contribution to the transformation of such services and receive recognition for the expansion of their role and appropriate remuneration linked to national NHS employment role profiles. The potential benefit of the ANP role more broadly in mental health services is discussed, together with factors that may have previously hindered their contribution to the transformation of services. The strategic development and planning process that led to implementing the ANP role within memory services is presented, together with a description of how the relevant higher level clinical skills required for the roles were achieved and formally accredited.

This paper presents the pre-and post-test results of the outcomes of a workshop designed to increase learning disability and mental health nurses' knowledge and skill to undertake interventions for service users at risk of, or with a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. Health literacy is also discussed as a way of explaining why such nurses may lack expertise in physical health care. Findings from the workshop show that learning disability and mental health nurses have the motivation to increase their health literacy (skills and knowledge) in diabetes care. The potential of such workshops, and how organisations looking forward to the future can build health literacy, is discussed.