CURRENT SITUATION OF THE NURSING PRESCRIPTION IN SPAIN

The nursing prescription is a subject that has generated controversy in recent years. For some time now, legal support has been demanded for this task which nurses usually assume in their clinical practice. The nurses perform care tasks related to chronic patients, palliative care, home care or other processes, and in many cases, they must make decisions without any legal backing. The first regulation in Spain that refers to the ability of nurses to indicate, use and dispense certain medicines and health products autonomously appears in Law 28/2009, which modified the law on guarantees and rational use of medicines. In it, reference was also made to the fact that the government would regulate this competence. The development of this regulation does not occur until 2015 with Royal Decree 954/2015, which denies the possibility of autonomous nurse prescription and generates new controversy. In recent months, an agreement has been reached to modify this royal decree so that, once it is published in the BOE, nurses may prescribe within the scope of their competences, which will mean the recognition of their skills in professional practice and a benefit for both patients and the health system.