Derbyshire Community Health Services (DCHS) relies on non-medical prescribers (NMPs) to run its community hospital wards and many of its clinics and services in the community. It is one of DCHS's aims to increase the number of active prescribers to better support our patients and reduce the reliance on local GPs to prescribe for their patients who are being cared for in the community.
After talking to recent NMP trainees and investigating the reasons for a high failure rate in completing the course or actively prescribing after the course, crucial factors that would have improved success rates were identified as lack of knowledge about the course and the commitment required to successfully complete plus the lack of support during and immediately after the course. By investing in better preparation and support before, during and after studying for the qualification we believed that we could improve pass rates and minimise wasting funds and resources on staff who were ill-prepared for the demands of the course and lacked confidence to prescribe when qualified, particularly as a large number of practitioners work alone in the community.
A new programme of support was implemented for the cohort that commenced their training in September 2021, with lunchtime virtual education, case study and question/answer sessions Experienced prescribers, recently qualified prescribers, training and education representatives, GP leads, pharmacy leads, designated prescribing practitioners (DPPs) and prospective DPPs also joined these 45-minute lunchtime sessions. At minimal cost and only a small time commitment as the leadership of sessions is shared, an 81% qualification success rate for this first cohort, compared with the previous high dropout/failure rate of approximately 50% shows we are on the right track. The feedback from those who have attended the sessions was very positive. Trainees did not feel isolated at a time when learning was almost all virtual due to the pandemic. We are awaiting the results of our second January 2022 cohort of trainees whose results are due shortly but believe these will show a continuing trend of increased success and confidence.
