• Skip to content
  • Skip to footer
  • Accessibility options
University of Brighton
  • About us
  • Business and
    employers
  • Alumni and
    supporters
  • For
    students
  • For
    staff
  • Accessibility
    options
Open menu
Home
Home
  • Close
  • Study here
    • Meet us
    • Open days
    • Virtual tours
    • Upcoming events
    • Applicant days
    • Meet us in your country
    • Chat to our students
    • Ask us a question
    • Order a prospectus
    • Our campuses
    • Our four campuses
    • Accommodation options
    • Our halls
    • Helping you find a home
    • What you can study
    • Find a course
    • Full A-Z course list
    • Explore our subjects
    • Our academic departments
    • How to study with us
    • Undergraduate application process
    • Postgraduate application process
    • International student application process
    • Apprenticeships
    • Applying through Clearing
    • Transfer from another university
    • Fees and financial support
    • Undergraduate finance
    • Postgraduate finance
    • Supporting you
    • Your wellbeing
    • Student support and guidance tutors
    • Study skills support
    • Careers and employability
  • Research
    • Research and knowledge exchange
    • Research and knowledge exchange organisation
    • The Global Challenges
    • Centres of Research Excellence (COREs)
    • Research Excellence Groups (REGs)
    • Our research database
    • Information for business
    • Community University Partnership Programme (CUPP)
    • Postgraduate research degrees
    • PhD research disciplines and programmes
    • PhD funding opportunities and studentships
    • How to apply for your PhD
    • Research environment
    • Investing in research careers
    • Strategic plan
    • Research concordat
    • News, events, publications and films
    • Featured research and knowledge exchange projects
    • Research and knowledge exchange news
    • Inaugural lectures
    • Research and knowledge exchange publications and films
    • Academic staff search
  • About us
  • Business and employers
  • Alumni, supporters and giving
  • Current students
  • Staff
  • Accessibility
Search our site
Research-project-banner
Research and knowledge exchange
  • Postgraduate research degrees
  • Research features
  • Research organisation
  • Research environment
  • Groups
    • Groups
    • Applied geosciences
    • Built environment
    • Biomaterials and Drug Delivery
    • Brighton and Sussex Medicines Optimisation
    • Chemistry
    • Stress, ageing and disease
    • Ecosystems and environmental management
    • Education
    • Environment and public health
    • Healthcare Practice and Rehabilitation
    • Interdisciplinary Management and Higher Education
    • Management and Employment
    • Mathematics, Statistics and Operations
    • Musculoskeletal
    • Nuclear physics
    • Past human and environment dynamics
    • Paediatrics
    • Product design
    • Sensory neuroscience
    • Social Science Policy
    • Society space and environment
    • Sport and Exercise Science and Medicine
    • Sport, Tourism and Leisure
    • Sustainability and Resilience Engineering
    • Transforming sexuality and gender
    • Values and sustainability
  • Healthcare Practice and Rehabilitation
    • Healthcare Practice and Rehabilitation
    • Research impact
    • Research areas
    • Research projects
    • Collaborations
    • Events
    • About us
  • Research projects
    • Research projects
    • Action for Health
    • Activity Buddies
    • Activity Buddies: promoting quality of life for older people together
    • Addressing the social determinants of health
    • Alumni experiences of group research projects
    • Assessing stress, protective factors and psychological well-being among undergraduate students
    • Benchmarking Regional Health Management (BEN)
    • Breakfast and satiety
    • Breaking down barriers and improving quality of life for wheelchair users
    • Brighton and Hove as a healthy city
    • CEIHPAL
    • Communicating risks of treatment to patients
    • Compassionate nursing care in an acute care trust
    • Complaints and claims against osteopaths
    • Developing a health promoting university
    • Developing a psychosocial index
    • Developing Interprofessional Education
    • Developing the theoretical construct of Flow
    • Development of the PBL directory as a research tool
    • Dynamic pressure measurement
    • Eastbourne local food project
    • ECHIM
    • EDA - Eastbourne designed for all
    • Efficacy-of-intravenous-vs-oral-paracetamol-for-lower-wisdom-tooth-extraction
    • Engaging fathers in supporting breastfeeding
    • Enhancing learning and patient care
    • EUMAHP
    • EUPHID
    • EURODOC
    • Evaluating physiotherapist and podiatrist independent prescribing
    • Evaluation of sexual health services
    • Exploration of the flow process
    • Exploring embroiderers stories
    • Exploring the nature and extent of foot complaints in rheumatoid arthritis
    • Fit as a fiddle
    • Foot and ankle injuries footballers
    • Foot characteristics in gout, diabetes and chronic kidney disease
    • Foot complaints in Lupus
    • Footwear selection in women with RA
    • Further explorations into the conundrum of flow process
    • Gardening and older people
    • GRADIENT
    • Health improvement commissioning
    • Health through volunteering
    • HEPCOM
    • IMHPA
    • Improving motor function for children with cerebral palsy
    • Improving student's perception of attainment
    • Introducing meaningful activity onto hospital wards
    • Lifestyle matters
    • Lumbar spine mobilisations
    • Management of posterior leg pain
    • Measurement of ADLs in two different wheelchairs
    • Measurement of hand/handrim grip forces
    • Measures in EMG in one-arm drive wheelchairs
    • Modelling sexual healthcare for substance misusing women
    • NowHereLand
    • Occupational therapy
    • Occupational therapy students' experiences of role-emerging placements
    • Occupational therapy supporting people with profound intellectual disabilities to engage in occupation at home
    • One-hand user wheelchair development
    • Osteopathy research priorities
    • Our space
    • Pain and quality of life in paralympic sports participants
    • PHETICE
    • Physiotherapy students' lived experiences
    • Play and Cerebral Palsy
    • Primary science learning objectives in a PBL curriculum
    • Retain project
    • Self-forgetting as a therapeutic property of occupation
    • Self-management of acute and chronic low back disorders
    • Significant walks
    • Situational awareness of patient deterioration
    • Small Steps
    • Standardised data collection in osteopathy
    • Student nurses' anxiety and the management of simulated patient deterioration
    • Students' experiences of learning and approaches to studying
    • Support for newly qualified clinical practitioners
    • The haemophilia and HIV life history project
    • The influence of the 'by learning objective' module
    • The lived experience of active Charcot Foot in Diabetes Mellitus
    • The OPEn project
    • The PARO project
    • The risks of childbirth in historical perspective
    • The use of exercise in physiotherapy
    • Trans-Atlantic Exchange Partnerships
    • University Campus E-bikes research
    • User evaluation of the Neater Uni-wheelchair
    • Vertical reaction forces of three different one-arm drive wheelchairs
    • Volunteering for health
  • Evaluating physiotherapist and podiatrist independent prescribing

Evaluation of Physiotherapist and Podiatrist Independent Prescribing, Mixing of Medicines and Prescribing of Controlled Drugs

In August 2013 UK legislative change came into effect permitting allied health professionals to practice as independent prescribers (IP). Recently the first physiotherapy and podiatry (PP) students have completed training and gained full accreditation. Although the introduction of PP-IP is widely supported, with service delivery and patient benefit anticipated, there is little evidence related to prescribing by PPs. Most of the reported benefits, such as cost savings, improved access, and quality of care relate mainly to prescribing by nurses and pharmacists. Equally, there are concerns surrounding the levels of support and governance structures in place for IP undertaken by AHPs, since organisational barriers and policy restrictions are known to affect implementation of the prescribing role. As the number of trained individuals increases and IP is incorporated into clinical practice, its comprehensive early evaluation will become increasingly important.

This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of independent prescribing by physiotherapists and podiatrists utilising a three-phase study informed by the principles of case study design, using mixed methods. This is work is funded by Department of Health and is a joint collaboration between Surrey University and University of Brighton.

Project aims

The project aims are to

  • Describe and classify the services provided by podiatrist and physiotherapist independent prescribers
  • Identify the factors that inhibit/facilitate the uptake and implementation of physiotherapist and podiatrist independent prescribing.
  • Evaluate the contribution of physiotherapist and podiatrist independent prescribing to the experience of patients and carers and its impact on choice, access, and self-reported health outcomes
  • Identify the medicines management activities that enable podiatrist and physiotherapist independent prescribers to contribute most effectively to successful care outcomes
  • Assess the quality, safety and clinical appropriateness of physiotherapist and podiatrist independent prescribing
  • Evaluate the impact of physiotherapist and podiatrist independent prescribing on cost, quality, effectiveness and organisation of care
  • Explore the prescribing models in current practice, their associated resources, and patient utility
  • Evaluate the appropriateness and effectiveness of physiotherapist and podiatrist independent prescribing educational programmes.

Method

Informed by the principles of case-study design1 the research enables key stakeholders to have a voice in the evaluative process and captures context at three levels of analysis (see appendix). These include:

  • Macro level: Literature review (Phase 1)
  • Meso level: Survey of key stakeholders, and analysis of key documents to explore physiotherapist and podiatrist independent prescribing at an organisation and delivery level (Phase 2)
  • Micro level: In depth analysis of practice settings in which physiotherapist and podiatrist independent prescribing is used within case studies (Phase 3)

Project impact

Describing the services provided by PP-IPs and determining the impact of these services, on effectiveness, efficiency, quality and cost of services, will create evidence to inform those engaged in policy development and commissioning services, guide professional bodies, healthcare commissioners and managers and support wider implementation of the role. It will allow informed decision making about the extension of prescribing rights to other healthcare professionals and other countries who look to follow our experience.

Research team

Nicola Carey

Karen Stenner

Freda Mold

Heather Gage

Molly Courtenay

Peter Williams

Judith Edwards

Dr Simon Otter

Professor Ann Moore

Jane Brown

Output

Articles are in preparation

 

Partners

University of Surrey

University of Brighton

Liverpool John Moores University

Department of Health

Back to top
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • TikTok
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn icon

Contact us

University of Brighton
Mithras House
Lewes Road
Brighton
BN2 4AT

Main switchboard 01273 600900

Course enquiries

Sign up for updates

University contacts

Report a problem with this page

Quick links Quick links

  • Courses
  • Open days
  • Order a prospectus
  • Academic departments
  • Academic staff
  • Professional services departments
  • Jobs
  • Privacy and cookie policy
  • Accessibility statement
  • Libraries
  • Term dates
  • Maps
  • Graduation
  • Site information
  • Online shop
  • COVID-19

Information for Information for

  • Current students
  • International students
  • Media/press
  • Careers advisers/teachers
  • Parents/carers
  • Business/employers
  • Alumni/supporters
  • Suppliers
  • Local residents