Nurse prescribing in mental health: national survey

Mental health nurses can now train to become independent prescribers as well as supplementary prescribers. Independent nurse prescribing can potentially help to reorganize mental health services, increase access to medicines and improve service user information, satisfaction and concordance. However, mental health nursing has been slow to undertake prescribing roles, and there has been little work conducted to look at where nurse prescribing is proving successful, and those areas where it is less so. This survey was designed to collect information from directors of nursing in mental health trusts about the numbers of mental health prescribers in England, gather views about prescribing in practice, and elicit intentions with regards to the development of nurse prescribing. In some Trusts, the number of mental health nurse prescribers has increased to the point where wider impacts on workforce, the configuration of teams and services are inevitable. Currently, the way that prescribing is used within different organizations, services and teams varies and it is unclear which setting is most appropriate for the different modes of prescribing. Future work should focus on the impact of mental health nurse prescribing on service delivery, as well as on service users, colleagues and nurses themselves.