Welcome to the Podiatry Arena forums, for communication between foot health professionals about podiatry and related topics.
You are currently viewing our podiatry forum as a guest which gives you limited access to view all podiatry discussions and access our other features. By joining our free global community of Podiatrists and other interested foot health care professionals you will have access to post podiatry topics (answer and ask questions), communicate privately with other members (PM), upload content, view attachments, receive a weekly email update of new discussions, earn CPD points and access many other special features. Registered users do not get displayed the advertisments in posted messages. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our global Podiatry community today!
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.
The Victorian Government has released its options paper for structual and legislative reform of the Health Professions in Victoria.
They plan to have the options sorted out so as to have legislation passes by Government during the Spring session of Parliament.
I have included an extract that may be of interest. The rest of the document mainly concerns the operation and make up of the registration boards. There is a website below that describes the process, but the document isn't there (yet)
Regulation of prescribing of medicines
The discussion paper set out the current legislative framework that regulates the prescribing of medicines by registered practitioners. At present medical practitioners, nurse practitioners, dentists, optometrists and Chinese medicine practitioners have prescribing rights, but the nature and scope of these rights varies (chapter 20).
Views were polarised on whether approval processes for new drugs or lists of drugs should be streamlined, and whether additional professions such as podiatrists should have limited prescribing rights. Medical stakeholders generally opposed any extensions to prescribing rights or streamlining of approval processes for new drugs. Respondents from those professions with prescribing rights (or with aspirations for prescribing rights) supported more streamlined processes for approving lists of drugs.
The Department is of the view that:
Extensions to the scope of practice of various professions to include prescribing rights should be supported, where these professions can demonstrate sufficient training and adequate mechanisms to support safe and competent prescribing practices.
There is a net public benefit in supporting an expanded scope of practice for suitably trained podiatrists to prescribe from an approved list of drugs, and that legislative changes to support this extension should proceed.
There are adequate safeguards in the Nurses Act to ensure accountability and transparency in the way lists of drugs are approved for each category of nurse practitioner, without the need for the categories of nurse practitioner and lists of drugs to be prescribed in regulation.
There must be a transparent and accountable system in place for approving the drugs available for prescribing by practitioners from those professions with limited prescribing rights.
The system must ensure that the lists of approved drugs or classes of drugs become official and known/available, for example, to those with statutory responsibilities under the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances (DPCS) Act such as pharmacists and wholesalers.
Once an initial list or class of drugs has been approved by the Minister (following advice provided by the Poisons Advisory Committee), administrative arrangements for approving changes/additions to the list should be streamlined and responsibility should reside with the respective boards.
Reform proposals
35. That the legislation make provision to retain limited prescribing rights for optometrists (drugs for the treatment of anterior eye disease), nurse practitioners (various drug formularies depending on category of nurse practitioner) and Chinese medicine practitioners (Schedule 1 herbs).
36. That the legislation make provision for limited prescribing rights for podiatrists appropriate to their scope of practice.
37. That the legislation make provision for the following in relation to limited prescribing rights:
* A board responsible for overseeing limited prescribing rights for a profession be empowered to endorse suitably qualified practitioners to be authorised under the DPCS Act to prescribe drugs.
* The board be required to have in place a statutory committee with a membership and functions similar to those set out in sections 79(3) and 80(2) of the Nurses Act.
* The Minister have statutory power to receive applications from a board for approval of endorsed practitioners to prescribe a drug, type or class of drugs, including, where relevant, type of preparation and route of administration, and to approve this application for the purposes of authorisation of endorsed practitioners under the DPCS Act.
* The Minister have the power to determine matters to be addressed in an application for approval of prescribing rights, including:
o The scope of the approval sought.
o The consultation undertaken by the board to determine the need for and scope of the limited prescribing rights, including what expertise it has accessed.
o The arrangements the Board has made to ensure that existing and newly endorsed practitioners have adequate skills and knowledge to prescribe the drugs.
o The safeguards in place to ensure safe prescribing, including any clinical practice guidelines, CPD requirements etc.
* The Minister have statutory power to amend, vary or withdraw an approval at any time.
* The DPCS Act be amended to authorise endorsed practitioners to obtain possess, use sell or supply any Schedule 2,3, or 4 poison as long as it is consistent with the terms of the Ministerial approval and the endorsement granted by the registration board.
* That once the Minister has granted an approval, the registration board be empowered to issue and clinical practice guidelines for endorsed practitioners, and to amend from time to time any associated drug formulary, as long as such changes are within the scope of the approval granted by the Minister and the requirements of the DPCS Act.
__________________ Stephen Tucker Calvary Health Care
Great news Steve, and many thanks for bringing it to the attention of us forum lurkers. And huge thankyous to all those dedicated Pods who have worked hard and long behind the scenes to get it this far (God knows I remember the first rumblings nearly 20 years ago). Let's hope that this doesn't get stomped on or stalled. Meanwhile it will be a huge sigh of relief to all the Pod students who are currently studying vast quantities of Pharmacology, there will be a reason to hit those books even harder.
In the UK meantime there appears to be poised in the wing for after the election a new government iniative Supplementary Presciption right for Allied Health professionals
The new Registration Bill for all registered health professionals was introduced to parliament yesterday (26th October)
For those interested, the bill is now available at Victorian Government current Bills and it does allow the reg board to endorse podiatrist to prescribe S2, 3 and 4 medicines.
I let you know when it achieves Royal Ascent
But the new Act will not come into force until July 1 2007, so that is 18 months or so for all the Victorian Podiatrists to update their pharmacology knowledge
__________________ Stephen Tucker Calvary Health Care
The Health Professionals Regulation Bill has now passed both of The Victorian Houses of Parliament, without ammendment.
The registration Board will review the legislation and hopefully implement as many of the administrative requirements as possible before July 2007 to limit any delays in endorsing "suitably qualified podiatrists" to prescribe a "limited range of restricted medicines"
__________________ Stephen Tucker Calvary Health Care
OFITG,
that is a descion that the Pod Reg Board will be required to make over the next 18 months. It will not necessarily be a qualification as such but a level of competance based most probably on a mixture of educational knowledge and clinical experience. The nurses board currently require a masters degree for nurse practicioners to apply, but similar pharmacology units are included in the LaTrobe UG course.
There will need to be a mixture of options for people upgrading their knowledge and skills depening on their current pharmacological knowledge, based upon there existing qualifications.
There are currently pods who have completed the 4yr LaTrobe course, 3yr course with honours as a 4th yr which included extra pharm, those who completed the grad dip in podiatry at LaTrobe in the mid nineties or at other unis more recently and those with only the 3yr degree, so it will not be a one size fits all, but every one will need to reach the same as yet decided final standard.
__________________ Stephen Tucker Calvary Health Care
what does this mean for interstate podiatrists? Will the other states follow suit in 2007? or will we have to wait and go through the same lobbying process
Regulation of prescribing of medicines
Linear Mode
