Using the competency framework to train prescribers
| The Centre for Professional Development and Lifelong Learning at Keele University has been offering courses for trainee pharmacist prescribers since 2003. Throughout the last 13 years, the competency frameworks relating to prescribing have been used both to underpin the education of the trainee prescribers and for assessment purposes. |
| Key to delivery of the independent prescribing course has been the development of a ‘learning in practice/prescribing competency workbook’. The workbook is structured so that the course learning outcomes and prescribing competencies are linked. This workbook requires the student to document, through three separate review meetings with their designated medical practitioner (DMP), how they are working towards (in the initial and intermediate meetings) gaining competence in their specialist area of prescribing. At the final review meeting, the student needs to demonstrate that they are competent to prescribe by providing evidence for all of the course learning outcomes and prescribing competencies. |
| The students at Keele University use a structured reflective portfolio to collect evidence of their competence of the behavioural indicators that underpin the overarching prescribing competences. They are encouraged to write regularly in their portfolio, reflecting on the learning they have gained during their period of study. This could include learning from study days, directed reading, observation of other prescribers, direct patient care observed by others, assessment – such as case presentations and Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCE) – or any other source that provides evidence of meeting the prescribing competency standards. By the end of the study period, the student is required to map all of their evidence within the portfolio against the 16 course learning outcomes and nine prescribing competencies. This is submitted to the university and assessed by tutors who are also prescribers. |
| Students must demonstrate their competence to prescribe by meeting all of the competencies described in the framework before they are allowed to register as prescribers. |