RN Prescribing - CNA(NZ) members only feedback request for our submission

on 27 March

REMINDER - FEEDBACK REQUESTED BY 30th March 2013.

Please see information below from Nursing Council NZ.

Our Policy Analyst will collate a submission from the College of Nurses members. Please email your feedback by 30th March 2013 to admin@nurse.org.nz with 'RN Prescribing Feedback' in the subject line of your email.

If you are not a member of the College - CNA(NZ) and would like to make a submission, we recommend checking the Nursing Council website for submission details.

Nursing Council of New Zealand
Dear colleague

The Nursing Council is seeking your assistance to help us design and develop the best possible framework to allow registered nurses to prescribe safely and appropriately.

Our proposal builds on the success of the diabetes prescribing project. We want to create a regulatory framework that is flexible and supports suitably qualified nurses to prescribe in certain circumstances whilst ensuring that the Council meets its statutory obligations to assure the competence of nurses to protect public safety.

In developing our proposals, we have consulted widely across the sector. We have also worked closely with the Chief Nurse Business Unit in the Ministry of Health. That engagement and support from central government is important in shaping the policy, funding and employer support that are critical to the successful expansion of nurse prescribing.

We are all working in an environment where new more flexible models of care are being sought and developed to improve access to health services and to address the increasing numbers of New Zealanders with lifestyle related and chronic diseases. The Ministry is looking to nurses, as the largest component of the healthcare workforce, to expand their skills and knowledge in response to these changes.

More flexible models of care require flexible scopes of practice. One of the key issues we will be asking you to consider is whether or not we need a new scope of practice for specialist nurse prescribers.

As you will see in our consultation document, we are consulting on two proposals for nurse prescribing:

1. Community nurse prescribing to enable nurses in community and outpatient settings to prescribe medicines for minor ailments and illnesses

2.
Specialist nurse prescribing, to enable nurses working in a collaborative multi-disciplinary team in specialty services or in general practice, to be able to prescribe for common conditions such as diabetes, asthma, hypertension

The details of these proposals and the associated qualifications, standards and competencies, as well as the lists of medicines nurses may prescribe, are contained in the consultation document.

Registered nurse prescribing is a significant and historic advance in the evolution of nursing practice. More significantly it is about delivering benefits to all New Zealanders in terms of improving access to health and to medicines. Your help in shaping and fine-tuning how we do this is important. I thank you for giving these proposals your time and consideration.

Click here for the consultation document

Click here for the press release


With best wishes
Carolyn Reed

Nursing Council of New Zealand
New Zealand
Email all feedback by 30th March 2013 to admin@nurse.org.nz with 'RN Prescribing Feedback' in the subject line of your email

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