Health care professionals' views on hospital pharmacist prescribing in the United Kingdom

Abstract

The published evidence supports a multidisciplinary approach to drug therapy management. Pharmacist prescribing has already been introduced successfully in the United States, with good clinical outcome measures and high levels of doctor and patient satisfaction. In our study, questionnaires were sent to 195 doctors, 200 nurses and all 87 pharmacists working at five hospitals in Birmingham, to identify attitudes towards pharmacist‐written prescriptions and pharmacist prescribing. The combined response rate was 57.5 per cent. Few doctors (4.3 per cent) and nurses (5.2 per cent) responding had any experience of prescriptions written by a pharmacist, but all of those with such experience agreed that they had found it helpful. Support for pharmacist‐written prescriptions and pharmacist prescribing ranged from 43.6 per cent to 94 per cent, depending on the scenario described and the profession of the responder. Overall, a high proportion (78.7 per cent to 86.1 per cent) of doctors and nurses responding agreed that it would be useful if pharmacists were permitted to write prescriptions and prescribe drug treatment, though a majority believed that this should only include pharmacists with postgraduate education/training and routinely attached to the clinical area in question. Important issues identified as possible barriers to pharmacist prescribing in the UK include pharmacist willingness to accept this new role, education/training, familiarity with the patient, communication between health care professionals, professional and legal accountability and resource implications. If further training/education was made available for those who felt a need for it, 98.5 per cent of pharmacists stated that they would be happy to write prescriptions for existing therapy, and 95.5 per cent would also be happy to initiate/prescribe drug treatment. The future role of the hospital pharmacist in drug therapy management is explored. The perceived barriers to the introduction of pharmacist prescribing are not insurmountable. If tackled appropriately, the introduction of pharmacist‐written prescriptions and pharmacist prescribing is likely to prove a valuable contribution to patient care.

Independent prescribing by pharmacists: a study of the awareness, views and attitudes of Scottish community pharmacists

“…One might consider these two findings of the study to be contra- dictory and question their reliability. The majority of doctors and nurses, who participated in a mail survey, believed that rights for prescribing drug treatment and writing prescriptions should be offered only to those pharmacists with postgraduate education/training and routinely attached to the clinical area in question [21]. In our study, the respondents' expression of interest in undergoing further training despite their confidence in diagnosing and treating the listed conditions is suggestive of pharmacists' cautionary approach when embarking on a new role.…”

“…In our study, the respondents' expression of interest in undergoing further training despite their confidence in diagnosing and treating the listed conditions is suggestive of pharmacists' cautionary approach when embarking on a new role. Further education and/or training has been recommended for allied health professionals before undertaking prescribing activities [21,25]. Evidence from a 3-day training programme for general practitioners working at health centres [26] suggests that further training would enhance the quality and safety of prescriptions with continuing improvement.…”

“…After necessary changes in legislation, qualified independent nurse and pharmacist prescribers will be able to prescribe any licensed medicine for any medical condition (within their competence)-with the exception of controlled drugs [14]. The concept of non-medical prescribing has been welcomed by both health professionals and patients, though there has also been criticisms for the proposals and concerns regarding patient safety [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22].…”

Nurse and pharmacist supplementary prescribing in the UK—A thematic review of the literature

“…Thirty-five empirical research papers were identified: 20 relating to pharmacy [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] (Table 1 ), 15 nursing [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] (Table 2) and 3 papers that concerned both [41][42][43] (Table 3). However, several publications reported different aspects of one overall study and data set [12,13,[29][30][31]37,38].…”

“…Although concerned with pharmacist prescribing generally, studies by Child and Cantrill [9] involving doctors and Child et al [8] involving doctors, nurses and pharmacists found that all professionals reported possible barriers to pharmacists prescribing and listed training, communication, accountability and resource issues. Other significant barriers to the implementation of SP identified included time and financial limitations, no primary care strategy or funding for SP [6,12], difficulty in accessing patients' medical records [13,17,23,46,57], unsuitability for patients with co-morbidities [24], problems accessing continuing professional development materials for nurses [30] and perhaps the most frequently cited barrier-a lack of awareness of SP amongst not only other healthcare professionals but also patients and the public.…”