Barriers to extended nurse prescribing among practice nurses.

Practice nurses are defined as those nurses who work in general practices and are employed by GPs.This includes nurses who have gained further qualifications and are working as nurse practitioners and minor illness specialist nurses. Despite the success of nurse-led services in primary care, the move into extended nurse prescribing has not been as high as predicted. A questionnaire survey of all 251 practice nurses in one southern English county was conducted in order to ascertain current roles and responsibilities, prescribing qualifications (both actual and planned), and perceived barriers to acquiring a nurse independent prescriber qualification. The findings identified what local practice nurses perceive to be barriers to nurse prescribing with issues of age, salary, support and training all playing a part in discouraging the uptake of this qualification.