Barriers to Extended Nurse Prescribing Among Practice Nurses (Professional) (Report‪)‬

Introduction In a further extension to nurse prescribing, the Health and Social Care Act (2001) enabled all nurses in roles with the need and opportunity to become prescribers, once trained. In 2006, nurse prescribing was extended to allow nurses to prescribe from the entire British national formulary (BNF), with the exception of certain controlled drugs and unlicensed medicines. Training programmes were reviewed, and continued to be delivered over six months, to degree level, at institutions of higher education, but additionally required a 100% pass in a written maths test and an 80% pass rate in pharmacology at assessment. Nurses who completed appropriate education and assessment are registered by the NMC as nurse independent prescribers (NIPs).