Preparing pre-registration nurses to be 'prescriber ready': Aspirational or an achievable reality?

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), the professional body for U.K. registered nurses, midwives and nursing associates has recently proposed future nurses should be 'prescriber ready', in a move to ensure the nursing workforce can prescribe medicines soon after registration (NMC, 2018a). Considering this, the educational preparation requirements for future nurses requires consideration, particularly where it is incumbent on the University, or NMC Approved Educational Institution (AEI), to prepare nurses with sufficient knowledge and skills to enter an NMC approved non-medical prescribing programme from the point of registration. This paper explores the new NMC educational and practice standards for nurses and the potential infrastructures required of the AEI where there is a responsibility under the NMC to develop a new, more progressive generation of 'prescriber ready' nurse. Excitingly, Universities and nurse educators are now tasked with ensuring future nurses can safely demonstrate an amalgam of nursing care, fusing traditional nursing expertise with skills which once remained the exclusive responsibility of the doctor, thus creating a new generation of hybrid practitioners.