A paramedic journey to non-medical prescribing: part 3

This is the third and final part in a series of short articles on my experiences of becoming a paramedic prescriber. Previously, I have discussed my experience in getting onto a course, then my experiences during the course itself. In this final part, I will examine how becoming a prescriber has changed my day-to-day clinical practice.

The final hand-in for the non-medical prescribing (NMP) course was early May 2019, with results coming mid-June; then within 10 days, my professional registration had been amended and I was registered as a paramedic independent prescriber. As a profession new to prescribing, I had expected to come across issues with getting registered with the clinical commissioning group (CCG) and then getting set up appropriately as an authorised prescriber within EMIS, the clinical management software we use as a practice.

It was a pleasant surprise to email the CCG on a Friday and be given the approval to start prescribing at the end of the following week. It did take a little more work and some trial and error with my practice management but we did, after a few days, manage to get me set up as a prescriber in a system that currently does not allow paramedics to be prescribers. This will not be representative of every experience of newly qualified paramedic prescribers from what I have seen in online forums. However, in time, as more paramedics become prescribers, these issues are likely to settle, making the transition to prescribing in practice a smoother one.