Medicines law overhaul with Human Medicines Regulations 2012

The Human Medicines Regulations 2012 are a major consolidation of medicines law. They largely replace the Medicines Act 1968 and some 200 further pieces of secondary legislation, including the Prescription Only Medicines (Human Use) Order 1997 that defined and set out the authority of non-medical prescribers. Although the 2012 regulations mainly consolidate medicines law into one piece of secondary legislation it does introduce some policy changes that will influence district nurse practice by allowing non-medical prescribers to issue patient-specific directions in primary care settings and allowing community pharmacists to make changes to a prescription without the need to contact the prescriber beforehand.