A brief guide to the new supplementary prescribing.

Supplementary prescribing is an entirely new way of prescribing medicines, involving a partnership between a doctor (the independent prescriber) and a nurse or pharmacist (the supplementary prescriber). Following the announcement in November 2002 by health minister Lord Philip Hunt, this article explains how supplementary prescribing will work and looks at where and how nurses can use this new form of prescribing to improve services to patients.