Barriers and enablers to nurse prescribing in primary care

Abstract

Non-medical prescribing has seen rapid growth in recent years in the United Kingdom. It has been shown to be beneficial to patients and healthcare services. There are advantages for practitioners who choose to take on this extended role, however, some nurse independent prescribers only use their prescribing qualification in a limited way and others not at all. This literature review will consider the barriers and enablers for nurse prescribers who work in primary care. Five papers were selected from a database search of Ovid Medline, PubMed, Cinahl, and Google Scholar: two meta-syntheses, one systematic review, a national cross-sectional survey and a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews. The results showed that key areas of continuing professional development, support, and organisational factors could affect prescribing in either a positive or negative way and that these areas were often interrelated. There was little difference in these issues between primary care and the acute sector. Ensuring access to continuing professional development, the provision of ongoing clinical and managerial support and improvement to infrastructure along with further research are recommended to ensure nurse independent prescribers advance and fully utilise their prescribing qualification and that this vital service continues to develop and expand.