00:00We recognise the unique and valuable skills that nurses and nurse practitioners bring
00:05to our communities.
00:07I work together in many clinical settings and so do many of my colleagues.
00:12I guess the concern is with partnership prescribing is the changes is once there are multiple
00:17health professionals involved in a patient's care offering same or similar services, it
00:22reduces the opportunity for coordinated and comprehensive care.
00:26So the risk of fragmentation is the concern here.
00:31Nurses and nurse practitioners should be working on top of their scope but we're really advocating
00:36for a multidisciplinary team approach that is GP-led, so in coordination with the general
00:41practitioner so that the approach and the quality of outcomes for the patients is safe.
00:47So in terms of ensuring that there are processes in place in coordinating with a regular GP or
00:52a team would be really important so that there is the continuity.
00:57You know, when we actually see a patient over a period of time, if there are risks of multiple
01:02prescribers, patients have to often remember to tell us what medications that are on and,
01:07you know, go through that process with them.
01:09So it's about, you know, having everyone under the one umbrella means that there's better
01:13outcomes for patients and less risk of any overdosing or mishap with the doses of medications.
01:18I appreciate, you know, the convenience factor is actually quite important and many of my
01:22patients, you know, probably would say yes, that's important but at the same time when
01:27we do do a script, it's about going through the process of, you know, ensuring it's the
01:31right medication, the right dose and the appropriate time frame that the patient is on.
01:35Long-term medications can be the same but equally so, the role of a GP is also to deprescribe medications
01:41when we feel it's actually not needed, reducing the risk of, you know, the risk of polypharmacy
01:47as it's called, multiple medications, increased risk of other conditions and we try to actually
01:52take patients off medications when they don't need it.
01:54So it's about a holistic approach.
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