Nurse prescribing and dispensing in South Africa: Gaps in the current legislative framework

Health SA Gesondheid

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Nurse prescribing and dispensing in South Africa: Gaps in the current legislative framework
 
Creator Crowley, Talitha Gray, Adrew L. Geyer, Nelouise
 
Subject nursing; primary health care dispensing; legal framework; nurses; prescribing; South Africa.
Description Background: Nurse prescribing and dispensing are central to ensuring universal health access in South Africa.Objective: To describe the historical development of the legal enablements of nurse prescribing and dispensing in South Africa and highlight gaps in the current legislative framework.Method: This is a discussion article.Results: We emphasise significant deficiencies in the current legislative landscape that pose challenges to these vital nursing practices and call for urgent revisions of the legislative framework, particularly the revision of Section 56 of the Nursing Act (33 of 2005) and its related regulations, to formalise authorisation of specialist nurse prescribers in public and private practice. This will also entail an application to the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAPHRA) for the scheduling of substances by authorised nurse prescribers in the defined professional nurse and specialist nurse categories by the Minister of Health.Conclusion: There is a necessity for prompt legislative revisions to address identified deficiencies.Contribution: The contribution of this article lies in its advocacy for changes to the regulatory framework to further enable nurses to deliver safe and comprehensive health care.
 
Publisher AOSIS Publishing
 
Contributor N/A
Date 2024-06-14
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Review
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/hsag.v29i0.2582
 
Source Health SA Gesondheid; Vol 29 (2024); 6 pages 2071-9736 1025-9848
 
Language eng
 
Relation
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https://hsag.co.za/index.php/hsag/article/view/2582/html https://hsag.co.za/index.php/hsag/article/view/2582/epub https://hsag.co.za/index.php/hsag/article/view/2582/xml https://hsag.co.za/index.php/hsag/article/view/2582/pdf
 
Coverage South Africa 1940-present N/A
Rights Copyright (c) 2024 Talitha Crowley, Andrew L. Gray, Nelouise Geyer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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