24th May 2017

Pharmacist & Nurse Prescribers are as effective as GPs!!!

Cochrane Centre has done a comprehensive review pooling clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction across 45 studies of nurse or pharmacist prescribing compared with doctor prescribing and shown that outcomes were comparable! Most studies were of chronic disease management in primary care settings in high income countries (25 from the US and six from the UK).

Independent and supplementary prescribers in the NHS include not only the nurses and pharmacists, as covered in this review, but also other professions such as podiatrists, optometrists, and physiotherapists. At a time of high demand for NHS resources, with shortages of doctors in some specialties, prescribing by other professionals may help ease the workload, but safety, time and costs of training need to be considered.