Doctor leaders have voted in support of GPs declining to prescribe specialist medication in certain circumstances, including if initiated by non-prescribers, and demanded electronic prescribing is rolled out across the UK. <\/p>\n
At their annual representative meeting (ARM) in Liverpool today<\/a>, BMA leaders passed a motion arguing that requests from secondary care clinicians asking GPs to initiate medications for them \u2018carry an increased risk\u2019. <\/p>\n BMA leaders voted in favour of supporting GPs in declining \u2018all initial prescriptions requested by secondary care non-prescribers\u2019 as they should be prescribed within the speciality or specialist service. <\/p>\n They also voted in favour of motions demanding the BMA to lobby the Government for full reimbursement of national insurance increases as a result of the autumn Budget<\/a>, and for a new regulator and statutory register for all NHS managers, including practice managers. \u00a0 <\/p>\n The motion on specialist prescribing supported GPs in declining the prescribing of specialist indicated medication \u2018unless and until there is adequate evidence that the patient has been safely counselled\u2019, and the medications initiated, titrated and the patient stabilised. <\/p>\n Proposing the motion, YOR LMC medical secretary Dr Brian McGregor said: \u2018From a general practice perspective, it is a workload transfer \u2013 a decision is made in a secondary care service, and then a responsibility is passed to a general practitioner to actually initiate and generate the prescription. And it carries an increased risk. <\/p>\n \u2018GPs should be supported to decline that secondary care work. If it\u2019s a non-prescriber, if they\u2019re a registered professional they can do a prescribing course. <\/p>\n \u2018There\u2019s no reason you should have a non-prescriber advising prescribers or telling prescribers do particular prescriptions.\u2019 <\/p>\n He said that the solution to this is electronic prescribing and that there is \u2018no reason for it not to go ahead\u2019 since the software is available. <\/p>\n Liverpool LMC chair Dr Annie Farrell, who spoke in favour of the motion, said that it is \u2018mad\u2019 that the Government is talking about AI in healthcare and \u2018analogue to digital\u2019 when \u2018we don\u2019t even have the basics of a working IT system in secondary care\u2019. <\/p>\n She added: \u2018Electronic prescribing from hospital clinics must be mandated. It would save endless inappropriate transfers of work into general practice and make access to medications much better for patients.\u2019 <\/p>\n Speaking against the motion, Dr Jenny Day, a psychiatrist from Cornwall, said: \u2018I think recently, working with GPs has become more difficult as both their resources and our resources have declined. <\/p>\n \u2018If I am again to prescribe \u2013 because I have come from a time when I did do all my own prescriptions, often blind, not knowing what other medications the patients were on or what other conditions they had, which is obviously risky for the patients \u2013 electronic prescribing is absolutely essential, but it mustn\u2019t be just any sort of electronic prescribing. It must link with the GP prescribing.\u2019 <\/p>\n Stockport GP Dr Zahra Youssef, also in favour of the motion, said: \u2018We\u2019re seeing a worrying trend towards de-doctorification of the NHS with little regard for medicolegal and patient safety implications. GPs are left trying to navigate this minefield. <\/p>\n \u2018They are asked to initiate medications by clinicians who lack prescribing competencies, and often it\u2019s not clear who that person is, what their position is, or even who their supervising consultant is. It\u2019s a ludicrous situation.\u2019 <\/p>\n This morning, BMA representatives also voted in favour of lobbying the Government for \u2018appropriate reimbursement\u2019 for current cost increases relating to increases in employers\u2019 national insurance contributions. <\/p>\n