I am a qualified nurse prescriber just about to set up clinics in rural North Dorset. Does anyone have an operational policy in place (or know of one) that I could use/adapt with regards to non-medical presribing in substance misuse? I would be very grateful. Or else advice or comments on putting such policies in place. Thanks. Tina

The non med training day is very much reccomended, so i hear, maybe that would be a great place to network and share best Practice.
Good Luck Tina. Great to hear of more of you rare breed.
Best
Tony B

I am involved with a group in writing one for our PCT for all non med prescribing, not just substance misuse. Its in draft form at present, but I will share it when its finalised. Meanwhile agree what you want to prescribe with your employer. The presentations from the substance misuse non med prescribing day are on this web site now under conferences.

Hi - I am also going to the RCGP conference on Oct 4th. In the meantime are there any potential NP's for Young Persons Drugs treatment ? We have NP's in post for the Adult teams, and would be interested in setting up something for Young People - local discussion centres around the experience of the NP in Drugs work, risk assessment, knowledge of medications and interactions etc. Any thoughts welcome. It's worth noting that opiates are off license for Young people under 16 ( Subutex ) and 18 ( Methadone ) which may be a legal hurdle.

Gill,
Prescribig for young people should be ok within a clinical management plan due to being off licence. It will be the same as Nurses working in Paeds.

Tina,
Our polices have just been re-hashed and are awaiting 'Signing off' you are welcome to copies soon as. The policies covers any prescribing in this area whoever does it in the surgery. It does state the process for non-medical prescribing. I'd be careful of excessive protocol writing and keep things as simple as possible.

Hi, you SPs. I've just spent a day at Keele learning to be a DMP for a pharmacist TSP in substance misuse. (all this new jargon.. DMP=designated medical practitioner and TSP is a trainee supplemantary prescriber)
I learned all about being unconciously incompetent, and Miller's pyramid of something or other. Our DAT is funding the two lead pharmacists (one oversees supervised consumption facilities/training/payments and the other ditto needle exchanges around birmingham) to train as SPs and I suppose later as IPs. They are also funding two of us GPwSIs to be DMPs. So by the end of six months , we should all four be very expert. I've already learned large amounts about the politics of our local pharmacies.

Judith,
Great to hear you are getting trained as how to be an abbreviation; my medical supervisor did not have a great deal of direction.
I think he managed well and has supervised two Nurses on the course.

we've got quite a good one in our PCT i think ( i last looked at it about 5 months ago) but i can't find an electronic version!! I must have filed it somewhere safe - i will keep looking but in the meantime if you send me your snail mail address i'll send you a hard copy. from what i remember it has a whole gamut of things in it i think like who keeps the list of the NMPs, who will liaise with the BSA (business services authority) formerly known as PPA (prescription pricing authority) and that we will have a NMP group and who will run it and how often and who will attend etc. How to apply for the SP courses etc
Regards
Heather

Yes it sounds like our PCT draft policy - looks at criteria for training, roles of DMP and non medical prescribers, accountability, scope of practice, access to prescribing budgets, etc.