| Shared Care Practice Policy |
SHARED CARE MEDICATIONS
Shared care is a process whereby responsibility for a patient’s medication is shared between a GP and an NHS consultant. In such a situation, the consultant will assess a patient’s suitability for the medication, perform any necessary baseline investigations and counsel the patient fully on the medication, before prescribing the medication and adjusting the dose until the patient is stable.
Once the patient is stable, the consultant then writes to the GP to ask them to consider shared care. This is entirely a voluntary process with no obligation. If the GP accepts, they then take over the prescribing and sometimes monitoring of the patient, notifying the consultant should any problems arise. The patient must remain under the care of the consultant. For shared care to be valid, there must also be a written agreement on the duties and responsibilities of each party.
The whole process of shared care is to facilitate appropriate clinical oversight and to maintain patient safety whilst allowing patients to receive their medication in the community.
At the current time, I J Healthcare are still entering into NHS shared care agreements providing these agreements are safe and conditions are fully met by both parties.
I J Healthcare does not participate in prescribing arrangements with private providers as recommended by the British Medical Association (BMA)
Specifically, we will not consider prescribing for any Private Provider that is a specialist-only medication. ‘Shared Care’ does not exist as an initiative outside of the NHS.
The reason why we do not consider prescribing medication in this way is that there is no proper specialist oversight and consequently patient safety is potentially at risk. Private companies can close down or patients fail to continue to pay for the required specialist reviews and therefore GPs and patients can be left in an unmanageable situation.
The GP may however be asked to prescribe a medication that is not banded as specialist-only. In this instance, the GP may agree to issue this medication on a NHS prescription providing they feel competent in taking responsibility for the prescribing, they feel this best serves the patient need and they agree with the advice. If not, prescribing will need to be provided by the specialist.
Please follow this link for further information regarding the BMA guidance relating to shared care and the NHS-Private interface
BMA guidance