Professional, legal and ethical dimensions of prescribing. Part 2: legal and ethical

The prescribing practice of a range of healthcare practitioners has developed over the years through a series of amendments to medicines law. These amendments have resulted in an incremental expansion of prescribing rights and, by implication, the scope for which the practitioner owes a duty of care. Spanning the professional, legal and ethical dimensions of prescribing, duty of care is integral to professional standards and is a recognised legal concept that underpins common ethical principles (Beauchamp and Childress 2013, Griffith 2019). There is potential for overlap or conflict among these areas, for example there may be an ethical imperative to treat the person, but questions may arise about whether the situation is within the prescriber’s current scope of practice. Being able to justify or explain decisions as part of a duty of care is supported through application of a prescribing model such as RAPID-CASE, which was devised by the authors and was presented in part one (Gould and Bain 2022a, 2022b).
This second article examines selected legal and ethical dimensions of prescribing decision-making to prompt consideration of these when nurses are faced with practical challenges. Critical consideration of the professional, legal and ethical dimensions of prescribing is highly pertinent when the scope of practice boundaries are uncertain or variable, such as during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.