Consultations between nurse prescribers and patients with diabetes in primary care: a qualitative study of patient views
- Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
- Correspondence to Sue Latter
University of Southampton, Building 67, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK; sml{at}soton.ac.uk
Implications for practice and research
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■ The study suggests that nurse prescribers' consultations have a positive impact on patients with diabetes and highlights characteristics which nurses might include in their consultations.
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■ A number of factors were identified as necessary prerequisites to good practice, including: continuity, flexibility over consultation length, interpersonal skills and specialist diabetes knowledge. As the authors rightly point out “now identified, it is important that these characteristics are promoted and protected.”
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■ Nurses must ensure that they include an opportunity to discuss medicines' side effects in consultations with patients.
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■ We need further studies which move beyond self-report data to rigorously and directly analyse the relationship between nurse prescribing and patient outcomes.
Context
The background to the study is that, in the UK, there has been an incremental extension of prescribing rights to appropriately qualified nurses and other …
