Online learning for non-medical prescribers launched
pharmafile | August 12, 2011 | News story | Medical Communications | Pfizer, Prescriber, medical education, non medical prescribing
Therapeutics PLUS, a free online medical education offering to healthcare professionals has been re-launched.
The online resource has been created through a collaboration involving the NHS, academia, a publishing company and Pfizer. The Therapeutics PLUS platform gives healthcare professionals, primarily non-medical prescribers (NMPs) the opportunity to broaden their knowledge and skills.
NMPs can gain Master’s level credits towards an award in Prescribing Studies by completing the online learning modules available on Therapeutics PLUS. Modules available for study include Asthma, Neuropathic Pain, Smoking Cessation and COPD. Further modules currently in development include Venous Thromboembolism and Urinary Incontinence.
The project is run with the help of NPC Plus and Keele University – operating within a partnership between NICE (which now incorporates the National Prescribing Centre) and the Medicines Management/School of Pharmacy at Keele University. NPC Plus aims to improve patient care by supporting effective prescribing and medicines management in the broadest sense.
The project also has the backing of Pfizer, which is supporting the educational needs of non-medical prescribers.
Also involved is Prescriber – a journal for primary care that covers therapeutics and issues around prescribing. Articles are written by leading specialists and GPs, targeting key prescribing decision makers and accessible to a multi-disciplinary prescribing audience.
Prescribing by nurses, pharmacists and other allied health professionals has been promoted for some time as a way of expanding expertise in the NHS.
A report published in October 2010 commissioned by the Department of Health found that 2-3% of the nursing and pharmacist workforce are qualified to prescribe medicines independently.
It also found that 93% of nurse prescribers and 80% of pharmacist prescribers had used their independent prescribing qualification, while 86% of the nurses and 71% of the pharmacists were currently prescribing
Nurses and pharmacists are prescribing predominantly in primary care, but “substantial numbers” were also found to be working in secondary care settings
Visit the Therapeutics PLUS site here
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