Standing Orders for Prescribers

Submitted by admin on Thu, 11/10/2011 - 09:04

This arrived at PNZ on 10 November.  If you would like PNZ to make a submission on this, please send your views to exec@podiatrynz.org.nz by 20 November:

On 1 August this year the Medicines (Standing Order) Regulations were updated to remove the requirement for the issuing prescriber to countersign every administration or supply of a medicine under a standing order.  Now, the issuer of a standing order is able to specify:
·        when countersigning is and is not required
·        who may supply and/or administer treatments under the order without countersigning being required on each occasion; and
·        the interval at which the issuer of the order will review the practices of those working under the order.

To address concerns about a possible lack of oversight if countersigning is not mandatory, the regulations require, as a minimum, a documented monthly audit of a sample of the records of administration or supply under a standing order.

The changes to the Regulations has prompted a review of the Ministry's Standing Order Guidelines. In addition to amending the Guidelines to reflect the changes about countersigning we have taken the opportunity to make them more user-friendly and put in an Standing Order Template Guide as an appendix.

The Ministry is aware that there is wide variability in the use of Standing Orders through the country. Our aim is for the Guidelines to be an informative and user-friendly resource for the health professionals and organisations when developing/reviewing their Standing Order templates and processes.
 
The updated Standing Order Guidelines are currently in draft form and we are interested to receive your feedback on their usability prior to finalising them and putting them up on the Ministry's website.

Could you please send any comments/suggestions to me by Weds 30 Nov.
File: 
Draft Standing Order Guidelines.doc