• Doctors with full registration who hold a licence to practice may prescribe all medicines, but not those drugs in Schedule 1 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001. If you have provisional registration and hold a licence to practice you may prescribe medicines in line with the supervisory conditions of your
• For information about the relevant legislation, including the Medicines Act 1968 and the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, we can check the Home Office website and the British National Medicine legislation applies throughout the UK.
• You should only prescribe drugs to meet identified needs of patients and never for your own convenience or simply because patients demand Avoid treating yourself and those close to you.
• Objectivity is essential in providing good care independent medical care should be sought whenever you or someone with whom you have a close personal relationship requires prescription Keeping up to date and prescribing in patients’ best interests
• When prescribing medicines you must ensure that your prescribing is appropriate and responsible and in the patient’s best To do this you must:

1. Ensure you are familiar with current guidance published in the British National Formulary and BNF for Children, including the use, side effects and contraindications of the medicines that you prescribe. You should be aware of the guidance about the clinical and cost-effectiveness of interventions published by various recognized institutes and
2. Be in possession of, or take, an adequate history from the patient, including: any previous adverse reactions to medicines; current medical conditions; and concurrent or recent use of medicines, including non-prescription
3. Reach agreement with the patient on the use of any proposed medication, and the management of the condition by exchanging information and clarifying any concerns. The amount of information you should give each patient will vary according to factors such as the nature of the patient’s condition, risks and side effects of the medicine, and the patient’s Bearing these issues in mind, you should, where appropriate:
4. Establish the patient’s priorities, preferences and concerns and encourage the patient to ask questions about medicine taking and the proposed treatment
5. Discuss other treatment options with the patient
6. Satisfy yourself that your patient has been given appropriate information, in a way they can understand, about: any common adverse side effects; potentially serious side effects; what to do in the event of a side-effect; interactions with other medicines; and the dosage and administration of the medicine;
7. Satisfy yourself that the patient understands how to take the medicine as prescribed

 When prescribing for a patient you should:

1. Prescribe dosages appropriate for the patient and their condition
2. Agree with the patient arrangements for appropriate follow-up and monitoring where This may include: further consultations; blood tests or other processes for adjusting the dosage of medicines, changing medicines and issuing repeat prescriptions.
3. Inform the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency of adverse reactions to medicines reported by your patients in accordance with the Yellow Card Scheme. You should provide patients with information about how to report suspected adverse reactions through the patient Yellow Card
4. Make a clear, accurate, legible and contemporaneous record of all medicines

• If you prescribe at the recommendation of a nurse or other healthcare professional who does not have prescribing rights, you must be satisfied that the prescription is appropriate for the patient concerned and that the professional is competent to have recommended the Keeping patients’ general practitioners informed
• If you are not the patient’s general practitioner and you accept a patient for treatment without a referral from the patient’s general practitioner, then you must:
• Explain to the patient the importance and benefits of keeping their general practitioner informed
• Inform the patient’s general practitioner, unless the patient objects
• Where possible, inform the patient’s general practitioner before any treatment is started, unless the patient objects to this
• If the patient does not want their general practitioner to be informed, or has no general practitioner, then you must:
• Take steps to ensure that the patient is not suffering from any medical condition or receiving any other treatment that would make the prescription of any medicines unsuitable or
• Take responsibility for providing all necessary after care for the patient until another doctor agrees to take

Sahana Ray

T.Y.B.Pharm.

Tags: MET Institute of Pharmacy