SHARED CARE PRESCRIBING AGREEMENTS

Hospital/Specialist clinics (Secondary Care) may ask General Practitioners (GPs) to “share care” of patients, once a health condition has been diagnosed and the relevant medication prescribed at a dose that is stable and unlikely to change.

Shared care in the NHS is a formal, voluntary agreement that allows GPs to take responsibility for prescribing and monitoring specialist medicines. It involves a partnership between patients, their specialist and their GP.

Shared care requires the consent of the specialist, GP, and patient. The specialist must provide advice to the GP if this is asked for and review the medicine at regular intervals to make sure it is still safe and effective.

To take on prescribing and monitoring, the GP must be satisfied they have sufficient information, experience and knowledge of the patient and the medicine, treatment or device to prescribe. GP’s must feel competent to exercise their share of clinical responsibility and feel they will be able to access timely support from secondary care when needed.

Patients must also agree to attend follow up monitoring appointments with the GP and the specialist (this may be blood tests or other health markers such as weight or blood pressure). If a patient fails to attend their follow up with their GP or specialist, then shared care prescribing will be withdrawn.

Often, this process is straightforward, and we will be happy to accept shared care agreements.

However, this is not always possible. There are varying reasons for this, including but limited to:

• GP’s do not feel they have the required training or competence to manage conditions and their prescribed medications in primary care.
• There may be significant difficulty accessing timely and appropriate advice and support from the relevant specialist team.
• We cannot be assured of the quality and governance of the specialist clinic.
• Paediatric patients. This group of patients have increased vulnerabilities due to their rapidly changing body sizes and/or changes to social circumstances and mental health, and their needs can change quickly.
• The surgery does not have capacity to take on this work.

We reserve the right to decline shared care agreements with specialists at our discretion and request the specialist to continue the management and prescribing. We also reserve the right to withdraw our agreement to share care if specialist or patient do not meet their responsibilities.

WE DO NOT CURRENTLY ACCEPT SHARED CARE REQUESTS FOR CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF 18