Standing orders Draft - feedback for College submission please

on 11 November

pdf Draft Standing Order Guidelines for feedback... (0.27MB) 

On 1 August this year the Medicines (Standing Order) Regulations were updated to remove the requirement for the issuing prescriber to countersign every administration or supply of a medicine under a standing order. Now, the issuer of a standing order is able to specify:

· when countersigning is and is not required
· who may supply and/or administer treatments under the order without countersigning being required on each occasion; and
· the interval at which the issuer of the order will review the practices of those working under the order.

To address concerns about a possible lack of oversight if countersigning is not mandatory, the regulations require, as a minimum, a documented monthly audit of a sample of the records of administration or supply under a standing order.

The changes to the Regulations has prompted a review of the Ministry's Standing Order Guidelines. In addition to amending the Guidelines to reflect the changes about countersigning we have taken the opportunity to make them more user-friendly and put in an Standing Order Template Guide as an appendix.

The Ministry is aware that there is wide variability in the use of Standing Orders through the country. Our aim is for the Guidelines to be an informative and user-friendly resource for the health professionals and organisations when developing/reviewing their Standing Order templates and processes.

The updated Standing Order Guidelines are currently in draft form click here to read full draft version and we are interested to receive your feedback on their usability.

To contribute to the College submission for feedback please submit your comments via the College forum with your comments/feedback before 18th November 2011
or you can email
admin@nurse.org.nz with "Standing orders feedback" in the subject line of your email.

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