This paper will demonstrate the author’s ability to prescribe safely from the Nurse Prescribing Formulary (NPF 2009-2011). A prescribing situation undertaken by myself while supervised by my mentor will be discussed. The patients name, address, date of birth and GP details have been changed to ensure patient confidentiality in accordance with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC)(2004). The patient therefore will be referred to under the pseudonym Prince Charming.
Nurse prescribing was first suggested by the Royal Collage of nursing (RCN) in 1980, it was to take another six years for it to become part of the government’s agenda with the Cumberlege Report in 1986 (Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS)(1986). These two report
The sheer number of dressings available can be overwhelming for nurses so they can tend to prescribe the dressings they are familiar with (Miller 1994). Ropper (2006) identified over 600 wound management products on the market; suggesting that nurses cannot be expected to know them all.
After assessing Prince Charming’s wound I decided that a prescription would have to be issued. I decided to prescribe a dressing called Allvyen adhesive. Within my trust we are provided with a wound care formulary, which has a suggested range of dressing they feel would be appropriate for different types of wound. The wound care formulary suggested a foam island dressing for the type of wound my patient had, it being was less expensive than my chosen dressing. The wound care formulary is meant as a guide and has been designed with cost in mind; as well as patient comfort. Hawkins (2010) recognizes that saving money is becoming an increasing priority within the National Health Service (NHS). I made a decision to prescribe an alternative product based on my own knowledge and current research on both dressings, NMC (2006) states that nurses must always ensure their decisions are based on best available evidence and by nurses maintaining their professional knowledge and competences. Research carried out by Lewis (2009) found that foam island when used correctly was equivalent to other more expensive foam dressings. However this