Community Practitioner Nurse / Midwife Prescribing

The aim of this prescribing qualification is to enable you to support person-centred and holistic care as well as to develop your clinical skills and enhance your professional practice

Course Overview

Upon completion, you will be a safe community practitioner prescriber who is competent to assess, manage and prescribe in your area of clinical expertise, working in conjunction with your patients and multidisciplinary team to give holistic care.

You will enhance patient access to community services and be supported and encouraged to develop the level of skills, knowledge and professionalism which are essential to the successful completion of the module.

If you are a registered nurse or midwife or a Specialist Community Public Health Nurse (SCPHN) working in the community, then this module will allow you to prescribe products from the Nurses’ Formulary.

The module has been validated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council and can be taken at level 6 or 7 and can be accredited to a postgraduate award such as a master’s degree.

Interviews for entry to the module will take place online

About your course

Course content

The module will give you the ability to assess patients in the domiciliary, community and primary care setting, ensuring that all prescribing decisions are patient-centred.

You'll gain the knowledge of the pharmacokinetics of medicines and how pharmacokinetics can be altered in special groups, including children and older people.

You'll develop effective skills of monitoring, reviewing and recording the patient’s prescribed treatment, its effectiveness, side-effects and contraindications and an awareness of adverse drug reactions.

You'll also gain the ability to assess a patient’s health need and prescribe accordingly within your own speciality as well as an enhanced knowledge of the pharmacological properties of medication, possible interactions and adverse effects.

This module supports the professional development of nurses, midwives and SCPHN as it equips you with the skills required by today’s healthcare system.  As a V150 community practitioner prescriber, you can prescribe from the Nurses’ Formulary and support seamless and speedier access to treatment.

Examinations

• 16 or 23 April (TBC)

Learning and teaching

Teaching will be delivered at the Hendon Campus as well as online learning. The module will utilise a range of resources and lectures and discussion groups involving critical incident analysis. A range of strategies will be used to encourage personal development, reflection and discussion through online seminars and small group teaching.

The teaching and acquisition of clinical skills will mostly take place in the practice setting although timetabled seminars will support history taking and consultation skills. You will demonstrate pharmacological knowledge in your speciality through presentations of prescribing in specialist groups such as children and older people.

Students on the community practitioner prescribing route will be taught alongside the independent and supplementary prescribing students but will also have some separate online seminars and workshops that reflects their specific needs as they move towards a community nurse prescribing qualification.

Assessment

In order to demonstrate you have achieved the modules learning outcomes, you will be assessed via:

• A written exam paper to test pharmacological knowledge and its application to practice

• Five online numeracy questions

• A 2,500 word case study of a patient you have recently made a prescribing decision for, alongside your practice assessor. To include a written prescription (50% weighting)

There will also be a Practice Assessment which will take the form of 10 days (65 hours) of supervised clinical practice (50% weighting) as well as successful completion of the Practice Assessment Document.

How to Apply

Qualifications

• Applicants must be a registered nurse, midwife, or Specialist Community Public Health Nurse (SCPHN)

Further requirements

We require applicants to be supported by their employer to attend 11 full days of teachings plus one day for the final exam. They must also have access to the practice assessor who is a qualified community practitioner prescriber.

They must demonstrate:

• Evidence of ability to study at Level 6 with a good command of written and spoken English

• Good standard of numeracy skills

• Clinical need to prescribe within the current role

They must hold a current DBS (within the last three years) and be competent in clinical history-taking, undertaking clinical assessments and diagnosing in your area of practice.

To be eligible for this module, you must provide evidence of an ability to study at Level 7. Apply for this module through our online application form.

Please note applications to this module will close 10 days before the module start date.