Prescribing Guidance & Standards for Healthcare Professionals
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Remediation · All UK prescribing professions CPD Certified
Prescribing Guidance and Standards for Healthcare Professionals
Facing a complaint or investigation about your prescribing? Start here. A CPD-certified remediation course for Doctors, Dentists, Nurses, Midwives, Pharmacists and all other Healthcare Professionals with prescribing responsibilities responding to a concern raised with the GMC, GDC, NMC, GPhC, HCPC or GOC. Written for allegations about controlled drugs, self-prescribing, prescribing for family or friends, remote and repeat prescribing, records and shared care — and how to evidence that your practice has changed. This is a course on professional standards, not clinical training in what to prescribe.
Who this course is for
For prescribers facing an investigation, a complaint or a fitness to practice process about a prescribing decision — and for anyone with medicines responsibilities who needs to evidence remediation.
A prescribing decision has been questioned
By a patient, a pharmacist, a colleague or your employer — whether about the decision itself, the information it rested on, or the record of it.
An error reached a patient
Section 4 covers accountability after a prescribing error, and it pairs with the candour obligation to be open about it promptly.
You prescribe remotely or online
An area of increasing regulatory attention, where the standards are unchanged but meeting them is harder and the mode of consultation is itself your decision.
You are under fitness to practice investigation
A case is open with the GMC, GDC, NMC, GPhC, HCPC or GOC and you need documented CPD and written reflection alongside the practical steps.
You prescribed for yourself
And it has been questioned. The guidance is that you avoid this wherever possible, and that you can justify it where you could not — so what gets examined is the objectivity, the record and the reason, rather than the medicine.
You prescribed for family or friends
For a partner, a relative or a friend. The same expectation applies, and the same four things tend to be missing: a full history, a proper examination, an adequate record, and the ability to say no.
An allegation of dishonesty in prescribing
For example, a prescription written in another person’s name. Once honesty is in question the case is no longer only about prescribing, and probity is the category regulators treat most seriously.
The concerns this course speaks to
Prescribing allegations cluster into a small number of shapes, and most turn on the basis for the decision or the record of it rather than on the pharmacology.
Insufficient basis for the decision
Prescribing without adequate knowledge of the patient’s health, or without enough information to be satisfied the treatment met their needs.
Remote and online prescribing
Whether the mode of consultation allowed the standards to be met, and whether an alternative should have been offered instead.
Records and monitoring
What was recorded at the time, what review interval was set, and whether monitoring actually happened.
Repeat prescribing
Continuation without review, and reliance on a system that generated repeats nobody was actively overseeing.
Self-prescribing and those close to you
Including the separate concern of not recording it, and of the person’s usual prescriber never being told.
Continuity and communication
The GP or usual prescriber not informed after a one-off or specialist prescription, so nobody held the whole picture.
What the course covers
Eight sections and 17 lessons, with a reflective quiz closing each of the first seven sections and a post-course assessment at the finish.
Prescribing responsibilities and safe prescribing
What prescribing responsibility actually means, and why safe and ethical prescribing sits at the centre of it.
Ethics and regulatory expectations
The ethical principles that apply, the prescribing guidance issued by the regulators, and the consequences of departing from it.
Safe prescribing practices
Techniques for safe and effective prescribing, and the specific expectations around self-prescribing and prescribing for family or friends.
Errors and accountability
The common types of prescribing error and how they are prevented, and what responsibility and accountability require once one has happened.
Special populations and higher-risk prescribing
Prescribing for vulnerable groups, cultural competence and patient-centred prescribing, and the ethical considerations around controlled and high-risk medicines.
Responding to a complaint or investigation
Fitness to practice standards and the regulators, and the practical steps to take when a concern about your prescribing has been raised.
Personal development planning
Setting goals for improvement, and tracking and reflecting on your prescribing practice so the change is evidenced rather than asserted.
Conclusions and assessment
Summary, followed by a post-course assessment. Your certificate is issued on completion.
How this helps if a concern has been raised
These cases are rarely about pharmacology
The instinct in a prescribing case is to defend the clinical choice — that the medicine was reasonable, that it is what anyone would have given. Very often that is true, and very often it is beside the point. What is usually in question is the basis for the decision and the record of it: what you knew about the patient, whether the mode of consultation supported a proper assessment, what you told them, what review you set, and who else was told afterwards.
That reframing is useful because it makes the case answerable. A response that engages with the basis for the decision can acknowledge a gap without conceding that the treatment was wrong, and it points straight at evidence a panel can verify: a prescribing audit repeated over a period, supervision arranged, targeted training completed, and a documented change to how you consent, record or review. Competence concerns are the most remediable category there is, and prescribing is the clearest example of that.
On completion you receive a certificate recording the course title, the CPD hours and the date — which, with your own written reflection, is suitable for inclusion in a remediation portfolio, an appraisal folder, a revalidation submission or a response to your regulator. For courses written to your own regulator’s standards, see courses by regulator.
Read the guidance yourself GMC: proposing, prescribing, providing and managing medicines ↗ GMC: prescribing for yourself or those close to you ↗ HCPC: standards for prescribing ↗
Ready to start? Any UK registered professional with prescribing responsibilities. Instant access, 2 CPD hours, certificate on completion.
Buy this course — £79.00Who wrote it
Course facilitator and author, Probity & Ethics
Dr Iqbal has designed and delivered ethics, probity and professionalism training for UK healthcare professionals since 2020, working with registrants of all nine UK healthcare regulators, online and face to face. He combines clinical practice with formal postgraduate training in healthcare law and ethics.
MBBS · MRCS · MRCGP · Postgraduate Certificate in Healthcare Law and Ethics, University of Dundee
Written and reviewed by Dr Shehzad Iqbal. Last reviewed August 2026.
What do the regulators mean by prescribing?
Considerably more than signing a prescription. The GMC’s guidance covers supplying prescription-only medicines, proposing them for an authorised prescriber to review and sign, providing them once signed, recommending other medicines, devices and dressings, advising patients on over-the-counter purchases, and giving written information prescriptions. Whichever element you are involved in, you are responsible for your own decisions and actions.
That breadth is recent and deliberate. With effect from 13 December 2024 the guidance was retitled Good practice in proposing, prescribing, providing and managing medicines and devices — the word proposing added precisely because the standards now reach activity around prescribing, not only the act of signing. If you are working from a version without it, you are working from a superseded document.
What these words mean
The terms a regulator will use about a probity concern, and what each one means means in practice.
Prescribing
For regulatory purposes, a range of activities wider than signing a prescription: supplying prescription-only medicines, proposing them for an authorised prescriber to review and sign, providing them once signed, recommending other medicines and devices, advising on over-the-counter purchases, and giving written information prescriptions.
Remote prescribing
Prescribing where the consultation takes place by telephone, video, online or another technological platform rather than face to face. The standards are unchanged; what differs is whether the mode of consultation allows you to meet them.
Shared care
An arrangement where responsibility for a patient's treatment is shared between prescribers, often between a specialist and a general practice. Signing the prescription carries responsibility for satisfying yourself that it is appropriate, necessary and safe.
Repeat prescribing
Issuing further supplies of a medicine without a new consultation each time. It carries its own expectations around review intervals, monitoring and the systems that generate the repeat.
Prescribing for those close to you
Prescribing for yourself, family members, partners or friends. Regulators expect this to be avoided wherever possible, and where unavoidable to be justified, recorded with the relationship stated, and shared with the person's usual prescriber.
Remediation
The concrete steps taken so the same thing does not happen again — targeted training, supervision, a prescribing audit repeated over time, changes to systems — together with evidence that they happened and have been sustained.
Prescribing means more than signing a prescription
Three consequences of that breadth, and the third has caught a lot of people out.
You do not have to sign to be responsible
Proposing a medicine for someone else to authorise, supplying one, or recommending an over-the-counter product all sit inside the standards. Responsibility attaches to your decision, not to the signature.
And signing does not transfer it away
If you sign on a colleague’s recommendation, you remain responsible for satisfying yourself that the prescription is appropriate, necessary and safe for that patient.
Prescribing rights are not transferable
Since 13 December 2024, anyone employed in a designated PA or AA role should not prescribe, even holding rights from a previous profession. Rights are specific to the profession in which they were granted.
Deciding whether it is safe to prescribe
The guidance sets out the questions to work through before proposing, prescribing or providing anything. They are about the basis for the decision, not about the choice of medicine.
Does the mode of consultation meet the patient's needs?
Face to face, telephone, video or online. If you cannot meet the standards through the mode you are using, you should offer an alternative if possible, or signpost to another service. The mode is a decision you are accountable for, not a constraint you inherit.
Do you have enough information about the patient?
Adequate knowledge of their health, and satisfaction that what you propose will meet their needs. This is where remote and one-off prescribing most often comes unstuck — not because the choice was wrong, but because the basis for it was thin.
Can you establish a dialogue and obtain consent?
A genuine exchange rather than a form filled in. If the consultation does not allow a real conversation about benefits, risks and alternatives, that is a reason to change the mode rather than to proceed.
Have you shared the information afterwards?
Telling the patient's GP or usual prescriber, where the patient agrees, so that whoever holds continuing responsibility knows. Failure here is a common and entirely avoidable finding.
Prescribing for yourself or those close to you
One of the most common routes into a prescribing referral, and one of the most avoidable. The guidance addresses it directly.
Avoid it wherever possible
The expectation is not that it is forbidden in every circumstance, but that you avoid it where you can, and that you can justify it where you could not.
The difficulty is objectivity
You are unlikely to take a full history, examine properly, keep an adequate record, or say no. Those are the four things that later look like the failures — not the medicine itself.
Record it, and tell their prescriber
Where it does happen, record your relationship to the person and why it was necessary, and inform their usual prescriber so continuity is not broken.
Controlled drugs are a different matter
Additional safeguards apply to controlled drugs and medicines liable to misuse, and prescribing them for yourself or someone close to you attracts particular scrutiny.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as prescribing for regulatory purposes?
Considerably more than signing a prescription. The GMC's guidance covers supplying prescription-only medicines, proposing them for an authorised prescriber to review and sign, providing them once signed, recommending other medicines, devices, dressings and activities such as exercise, advising patients on buying over-the-counter medicines, and giving written information prescriptions. Whichever element you are involved in, you are responsible for your own decisions and actions.
Which professions is this remediation course for?
Any UK registered healthcare professional with prescribing or medicines responsibilities — doctors regulated by the GMC, dentists regulated by the GDC, nurses and midwives regulated by the NMC, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians regulated by the GPhC, HCPC-registered independent and supplementary prescribers including paramedics, physiotherapists, podiatrists, radiographers and dietitians, and optometrists regulated by the GOC. It is equally relevant to professionals who recommend or supply medicines without signing prescriptions themselves.
The GMC guidance changed. What is different?
It was retitled and revised with effect from 13 December 2024, and is now Good practice in proposing, prescribing, providing and managing medicines and devices. The word proposing was added because the guidance now covers activity around prescribing and not only prescribing itself. If you are working from a version titled Good practice in prescribing and managing medicines and devices, you are working from a superseded document.
I am a PA or AA with prescribing rights from a previous role. Can I still use them?
No. From 13 December 2024, healthcare professionals employed in designated physician associate or anaesthesia associate roles should not prescribe medicines, even if they hold prescribing rights from a previous profession or were previously authorised to prescribe by an employer. Prescribing rights are specific to the regulated profession in which they were granted and are not transferable. PAs and AAs may propose medicines for an authorised prescriber to review and sign.
Can I prescribe for myself, my family or a friend?
Wherever possible you must avoid it, and the guidance is explicit about that. Where it happens the expectation is that you can justify it, that it is not for controlled drugs or medicines liable to abuse except in a genuine emergency, that you record your relationship to the person and the reason it was necessary, and that you tell their usual prescriber. This is one of the most common routes into a prescribing referral and one of the most avoidable.
Is remote prescribing treated differently?
The standards are the same; what changes is whether you can meet them. The guidance covers remote prescribing directly, including for patients in a care or nursing home or hospice and for patients based overseas, and it puts the mode of consultation itself in your hands: if you cannot meet the standards through the mode you are using, offer an alternative or signpost elsewhere. Online prescribing services are an area of increasing regulatory attention.
A colleague asked me to prescribe something they recommended. Whose responsibility is it?
Yours, if you sign it. The guidance has a whole section on shared care and on prescribing based on a proposal or recommendation by a colleague. You are entitled to rely on a colleague's advice, but you remain responsible for satisfying yourself that the prescription is appropriate, necessary and safe for that patient. “Someone else recommended it” is not an answer to a concern.
Where do prescribing standards sit for my regulator?
The GMC has standalone guidance on proposing, prescribing, providing and managing medicines and devices, which sits alongside Good medical practice. The HCPC publishes standards for prescribing that apply to its registered independent and supplementary prescribers. The NMC, GPhC, GDC and GOC each set expectations for their own registrants. Find the clause that applies to you and quote it by number in any written response.
Will completing this course resolve my fitness to practice case?
No. No course, from us or from anyone else, determines the outcome of a fitness to practice matter. What a course can do is help you build the insight and reflection your response needs, and give you a verifiable certificate to evidence it. In a prescribing case it should sit alongside practical steps such as supervision, a prescribing audit and targeted clinical training. Your indemnity provider, professional body or a specialist regulatory adviser should advise on your own circumstances.
Does this course teach me what to prescribe?
No, and it is important to be clear about that. This is a course about professional and regulatory standards — responsibility, decision-making, records, boundaries, error handling and remediation. It does not advise on any medicine, dose or treatment decision, and it is not a substitute for clinical training or for a prescribing qualification.
How long does it take, and does it count towards CPD?
It carries 2 CPD hours across eight sections and 17 lessons, with a reflective quiz closing each of the first seven sections and a post-course assessment at the end. The certificate is CPD-certified by The CPD Certification Service and is suitable for a remediation portfolio, a response to your regulator, an appraisal folder or a revalidation submission. It is self-paced.
Courses that work alongside this one
Scope of practice, risk and incident reporting — the wider frame most prescribing concerns sit inside.
Records, corrections and contemporaneous entries — what makes a prescribing decision defensible afterwards.
Being open when a prescribing error has reached a patient, and how to apologise properly.
The element assessed in almost every case, whatever the allegation, and the one most often described as lacking.
How to write reflection that reads as understanding rather than regret, in your own words.
Turning insight into concrete, evidenced change that a panel can see actually happened.
What fitness to practice means, how the process works, and what is being assessed at each stage.
Restoring confidence after a concern — with patients, with colleagues and with the regulator.
This course. Responsibility, records, remote and shared-care prescribing, prescribing for those close to you, and evidenced remediation.
Find courses written to your own regulator’s standards →
Start your remediation today, finish at your own pace
Instant access on purchase. Certificate on completion, CPD-certified by The CPD Certification Service.
Buy this course — £79.00 Bulk buy — any 10 coursesProbity & Ethics is an independent CPD provider. We are not affiliated with, accredited by, or endorsed by any UK healthcare regulator. This course covers professional and regulatory standards. It is not clinical training in prescribing, it does not confer or extend prescribing rights, and it gives no advice on any medicine, dose or treatment decision — for that, work to your own formulary, national guidance and scope of practice. No course determines the outcome of a fitness to practice case. This is not legal or regulatory advice — if a concern has been raised about you, speak to your defence organisation, professional body, insurer or a specialist regulatory adviser about your own circumstances.
