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that you choose to undertake.4 As a nonprescribing aesthetic nurse, you will be taught how to inject POMs, but will need to have a prescriber authorise you to use them. This becomes much more of an issue should a complication arise, from a dermal filler for example, as ultimately you will be relying on a third party to resolve the situation and prescribe hyaluronidase, which consequently results in a poorer service and experience for the patient. In worst case scenarios, it could lead to serious long-term implications. This is one of the many reasons that in my opinion, becoming an independent nurse prescriber in aesthetics is absolutely fundamental and should be integrated into aesthetic nursing training from the get-go.
The patient journey
The Last Word Independent nurse prescriber, clinic owner and honorary BACN board member Frances Turner Traill argues that all aesthetic nurses should hold a prescribing licence According to the British Association Cosmetic Nurses (BACN) there are currently more than 4,000 nurses practising in the aesthetic specialty,1 many of whom will have probably had very different pathways into this private sector. Whether they have been working in the NHS for over a decade, as many of my peers have, or decided early on in their career that they want to specialise in aesthetics, there is always one question that presents itself very quickly and that in my opinion, validates their expertise. Are they an independent prescriber? It is important to recognise that many nurses entering aesthetics will already have a prescribing licence and although technically they will be able to prescribe toxins for example, they should know what is within their remit and recognise their limitations. If they have never worked with products such as these before then I believe they should undertake the significant training required to administer toxin, or to prescribe it for others to administer. For those who have not obtained this qualification, they must undertake a specific course, detailed in this article. In layman’s terms, an independent
nurse prescriber has the authority to administer prescription-only medicines (POMs) such as botulinum toxin or hyaluronidase. To obtain this qualification, known as a V300,2 nurses will need to undertake a prescribing course at an approved university. They will also need to have been practising for a minimum of one year (university dependent) in the area they wish to prescribe in and have a designated medical practitioner (DMP), usually a doctor, working in aesthetics, prior to the course.3 Generally speaking, it will take around six months to complete, with a minimum of 90 hours of prescribingrelated practice under your DMP; all of which is subject to the specific course
For most of us, the reason that we started out in nursing was to provide a service and a duty of care to our patients and making the patient journey as smooth as possible is essential for us to accomplish this. It is from this that I believe that aesthetic nurses who do not hold a prescribing licence are not offering their patients a full service because they simply cannot manage their care throughout the whole patient journey; from the consultation stage through to treatment and reviewing them right until they’re discharged, if there ever really is a discharge in aesthetics, which is a whole other topic in itself. In addition to being able to manage complications should they arise, another point to add to this is that they will also be able to prescribe lidocaine which in turn, will help with patient comfort as it reduces pain for certain injectable procedures.
Career progression So many nurses have successfully opened their own clinic and train delegates on behalf of companies but, in my experience, those of which are non-prescribers are now very few and far between, a significant
It allows you to provide a more streamlined, efficient, effective, safer patient journey
Reproduced from Aesthetics | Volume 6/Issue 2 - January 2019