Independent Prescribing for Nurses

Entry requirements

Confirm you meet the professional entry requirements:

• You must be a registered nurse (level 1).
• You must have been a registered nurse with the NMC for at least one year.
• You must have the necessary governance support structures in place to undertake the programme (e.g. clinical support, access to protected learning time and employer support where appropriate).
• You must have the necessary competence, experience and academic ability to study the programme.
• You must have the capability to provide safe and effective practice at the level of prescribing including: clinical/health assessment, diagnostics/care management, planning and evaluation of care.

In the majority of cases, applicants must have a practice assessor and a practice supervisor to support their learning as this is an NMC requirement. Information about the roles are available in the document in this section. It is the responsibility of the applicant to try to secure this support - if you have not managed to have agreement to support you from a nominated practice assessor and practice supervisor we will interview you to discuss this.

Information on the role of the practice assessor and the practice supervisor

Months of entry

January, September

Course content

Train to become an independent prescriber on our postgraduate Non-Medical Prescribing programme for nurses. The programme comprises a variety of teaching and learning methods, including in-person study days, self-directed study and online learning.

You will be expected to complete a minimum of 78 hours of learning in practice. Details of our accreditation can be found on the NMC accreditation website. Since January 2020, this programme has been approved against the new NMC programme standards.

Nurses studying the programme can be assessed at either level 6 (undergraduate), leading to a Graduate Certificate, or level 7 (postgraduate), leading to a Postgraduate Certificate. Both programmes award 60 academic credits.