Registered nurses can now get qualified to prescribe medications

ABC NEWS (Australia)

From today, tens of thousands of registered nurses can begin training to prescribe medications to patients.  The change was approved by the government last year in an effort to address critical shortages in the workforce, particularly in rural and remote areas. The Australian Medical Association is supportive of the plan but wants the most addictive drugs to be excluded from the list of medicines registered nurses can prescribe. Frances Rice from the Australian College of Nursing says the change will make a major difference for people in remote communities.

Transcript

00:00There's really good distribution of registered nurses in rural and remote locations, obviously

00:07it could always be better, but this is a great opportunity to give access to those medicines

00:14that people need in those harder to reach settings.

00:17The important part of this process is that registered nurses are working in a partnership

00:22with another authorised prescriber, most likely a medical professional or a nurse practitioner,

00:27so as part of this process, they need to have a partnership prescribing agreement, which

00:33sets out what medications and what medical conditions the registered nurse is able to

00:38prescribe for, so that's really a discussion between the prescribing partners on what's

00:45appropriate for that nurse in that setting and with their context and scope of practice

00:50for what's appropriate for them to prescribe, and that might include Schedule 8 medicines,

00:56so the more dangerous pain medications and addictive medications, but that depends on

01:02that context of practice.

01:04So in palliative care, for example, where registered nurses work all the time, it's really appropriate

01:11for them to be able to prescribe pain medication for people as part of their journey towards

01:16the end of their life.

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