Analysing the Competency Framework for all Prescribers

In late 1996, the Department of Health funded a project to introduce an organisation to promote high-quality and cost-effective prescribing by supporting professionals in the NHS; this project formed the National Prescribing Centre (NPC). Their work included a national programme to support the introduction of non-medical prescribing– one of their work streams was to publish a range of profession-speci~ c prescribing competency frameworks from 2001. After years of use in practice, collated experience and feedback, it became evident that the core set of competencies each profession associated with representing competent prescribing were essentially the same (Picton, 2015). In 2012, the NPC reviewed all the frameworks and published a common framework for all prescribers, called A Single Competency Framework for all Prescribers (NPC, 2012). This continues to be the terminology used by many non-medical prescribers to describe the framework they used in their studies and what supports them now. In 2011, the NPC became part of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which tasked the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) with updating and managing the framework. The output of this project was the 2016 Competency Framework For All Prescribers. This new framework is designed to support education, organisations and practitioners themselves, to develop practice and promote competence. However, for some, using it in practice remains a daunting task. Presented below is the background to the concepts of competence and competency frameworks to support an understanding of how the framework came into existence and the theories that underpin this. This theory is then used to highlight different ways the framework can be used and propose a potential model for practitioners to use the framework.