Titles, qualifications and formularies

1. Community practitioner nurse or midwife prescriber

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This refers to a registered nurse (level 1), midwife or SCPHN who has an annotation next to their name on our register confirming that they are qualified to prescribe drugs, medicines and appliances from the Nurse Prescribers’ Formulary for Community Practitioners³ in the current edition of the British National Formulary⁴.

To obtain community practitioner nurse or midwife prescriber status, a registered nurse, midwife or SCPHN must successfully complete either:

1.1A community practitioner nurse prescribing course as part of an existing approved SCPHN or district nursing specialist practitioner qualification (SPQ) education programme. This is sometimes known as a ‘V100 course’ from the code that is used to enter the annotation onto the NMC register indicating that a registrant has successfully completed a prescribing course as part of a SCPHN or district nursing SPQ programme and can prescribe from the limited community formulary; or

1.2A stand-alone prescribing course for nurse or midwives who have not undertaken the community practitioner nurse (V100) qualification as part of an integrated programme of education, for example as part of a specialist practice qualification in district nursing or a SCPHN health visiting programme but who wish to be able to prescribe from the Nurse Prescribers’ Formulary for Community Practitioners in the current edition of the British National Formulary. This is sometimes known as a ‘V150 course’ from the code that is used to enter the annotation onto the NMC register indicating that a nurse or midwife (who is not a SCPHN and has not completed an SPQ as, for example, a district nurse that includes a prescribing qualification) has successfully completed an approved NMC prescribing programme and can prescribe from the limited community formulary.

2. Nurse or midwife independent prescriber

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This refers to a registered nurse (level 1), midwife or SCPHN who has an annotation next to their name on our register confirming that they may prescribe any medicine for any medical condition within their competence (with the exception of certain controlled drugs).

3. Supplementary prescriber

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This refers to a registered nurse (level 1), midwife or SCPHN who has an annotation next to their name on our register confirming that they are able to work in partnership with an independent prescriber (such as a doctor or dentist) to implement an agreed patient/client-specific clinical management plan with the patient/client’s agreement.

To obtain independent/supplementary prescriber status, a registered nurse, midwife or SCPHN must successfully complete an independent/supplementary prescriber preparation programme. This is sometimes known as a ‘V300 course’, from the code that is used to enter the annotation onto the NMC register indicating that a nurse or midwife has successfully completed an NMC approved prescribing programme that gives them independent/supplementary prescriber status, allowing them to prescribe any drugs (except certain controlled drugs) appropriate to their scope of practice.

Stand-alone extended formulary prescriber status was previously available by way of successfully completing the now discontinued V200 prescribing programme, before supplementary prescribing was introduced in 2003.

The above titles are set out in law⁵ and in NMC legislation⁶.