Nursing and Midwifery Council votes to adopt RPS prescribing competency framework

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has formally adopted the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s (RPS) Competency Framework for all Prescribers.

In 2017, the NMC publicly consulted on whether to adopt the framework, and 82% of those responding were in favour of the proposal.

The multidisciplinary framework aims to support prescribers from all healthcare sectors to be safe and effective in their work. It defines ten key competencies central to effective prescribing, divided between the consultation process and prescribing governance. The NMC’s decision means that all future NMC-approved prescribing programmes will be expected to train staff to meet these ten competencies.

Writing in Nursing Times, Catherine Picton, lead author of the RPS framework, said: “The increasing complexity of prescribing is a major challenge for all — both in terms of the number and range of complicated drugs in use.

“In light of this, it is encouraging to see the NMC become the first professional regulator to have adopted the RPS’s framework.”

The Competency Framework for all Prescribers was originally developed by the National Prescribing Centre and published by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. In 2015, it was agreed that the RPS would take responsibility for publishing the framework and keeping it up to date, in collaboration with all prescribing professions in the UK.