District nurses: relationships in nurse prescribing

Although nurse prescribing has been established in the UK for approximately 8 years, little is known about the effect this additional role is having on those who are involved in its processes. This article reports on the early phrases of an ethnographic study which is aiming to discover how prescribing is altering the ways in which district nurses relate to general practitioners, pharmacists, other community nurses, patients and carers during the experience of nurse prescribing. Using qualitative methodology the project has revealed that some relationships have improved, while others appear to have deteriorated slightly. Preliminary indications are that the introduction of prescribing, along with many other centrally driven initiatives, is altering the face of district nursing practice.