Mullan J.1,2, Smithson J.2, Frampton I.2
1University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom, 2University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom
Background: Recent changes in UK legislation and professional practice now mean that physiotherapists are able to prescribe certain drugs to assist in patient management. This provides an exciting opportunity to extend the scope of practice for individual physiotherapists and importantly potentially improve the quality of patient care.
To become an independent prescriber, physiotherapists undertake a post graduate non-medical prescribing programme. Successful completion leads to registration with the UK Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) as an independent prescriber.
To become an independent prescriber, physiotherapists undertake a post graduate non-medical prescribing programme. Successful completion leads to registration with the UK Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) as an independent prescriber.
Purpose: To determine how well a post graduate, inter-professional non-medical prescribing programme prepared Chartered Physiotherapists to meet their goal of becoming independent prescribers.
Objectives:
Explore the physiotherapists' views on the structure, delivery, opportunities and challenges of the programme and it's applicability to their individual practice.
Explore the role of the Designated Medical Practitioner (DMP) who mentors and signs off competencies in practice.
Identify ongoing educational needs to remain competent and registered with the HCPC as a prescriber.
Objectives:
Explore the physiotherapists' views on the structure, delivery, opportunities and challenges of the programme and it's applicability to their individual practice.
Explore the role of the Designated Medical Practitioner (DMP) who mentors and signs off competencies in practice.
Identify ongoing educational needs to remain competent and registered with the HCPC as a prescriber.
Methods: Participants: Eight volunteer Chartered Physiotherapists undertaking a non-medical prescribing programme to become Physiotherapy Independent Prescribers.
Semi-structured interviews, taped and transcribed. Thematic analysis to generate themes.
Results: Emergent ThemesValue of inter-professional programme. Good opportunity for learning from different perspectives. Recognition of different strengths within professional groups, e.g. pharmacology versus physical assessment.
Importance of clear programme structures and prescribing frameworks. Enabled generic learning that could then be effectively contextualised to own profession in practice. Legislative frameworks like HCPC Standards for Prescribing and the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) Prescribing Frameworks were praised for enabling the physiotherapists to clearly contextualise their prescribing learning to physiotherapy practice.
Recognition of time commitment. Volume of work within a six month period noted. Importance of ring-fence time in practice, additional to university learning.
Designated Medical Practitioner getting the right person and meaningful support. Individual use of this role varied but needed to be carefully negotiated prior to programme commencement. Importance of regular contact highlighted, including sitting in on each others clinics.
Conclusion(s): The physiotherapists felt that the programme prepared them very well, both in building competence and confidence. Most physiotherapists reported challenges in negotiating and ring-fencing the required additional ninety hours of prescribing clinical practice.
Whilst the programme was described as excellent in structure, content, teaching and student support, the physiotherapists overall felt they would benefit from more teaching on pharmacology, numeracy calculations and drug interactions and less on physical assessment and clinical reasoning.
Physiotherapists were unclear at this stage about the format or content of ongoing Continuing Professional Development (CPD).
In particular the physiotherapists noted that the programme helped them clearly define their scope of prescribing practice as well as their limitations, hence enabling them to identify when they would and, as importantly, would not prescribe.
Implications: The findings from this research informed the development of a new curriculum for non-medical prescribing which also included the Pharmacy profession alongside Nursing and Allied Health Professions. Overt learning contracts and signatures are now required prior to commencement on the programme for agreed prescribing practice hours and identified DMP commitment.
Funding acknowledgements: Unrestricted grants from Arthritis Research UK, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy Charitable Trust and the National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society (NASS).
Topic: Education: continuing professional development
Ethics approval: Ethical agreement was received from the University of Exeter and University of the West of England (UWE) Ethics Committees.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
