Medicines management for nursing practice

Graham Brack is a community pharmacist in Cornwall who also holds appointments as Pharmaceutical Adviser for Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Primary Care Trust and as an Associate Lecturer in Pharmacology for the University of Plymouth. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Pharmacy Management and is a frequent contributor to its pages. He holds a Master's degree in medical law and ethics and was a member of the NICE/National Patient Safety Agency joint committee on medicines reconciliation safety, and was a member of the Department of Health's Controlled Drugs Action Group. He is himself an independent prescriber specializing in the care of substance misusers and has been involved in teaching nurse prescribers since the very first cohort in Cornwall.Penny Franklin is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Plymouth where she leads the programme for Non-medical Prescribing and is a co-author of the Oxford Handbook of Prescribing for Nurses and Allied Health Professionals. She also teaches medication management to pre and post qualifying nurses. Penny is a Registered General Nurse, Registered Children's Nurse and Registered Community Specialist Public Health Nurse (Health Visitor) and engages in public health practice on a regular basis. In addition she is a Registered Nurse Teacher and a Community Practitioner Nurse Prescriber and Nurse Independent and Supplementary Prescriber. Penny has strong links with organisational Non-medical Leads locally and nationally. Penny holds a Masters of Arts (with distinction) in Complementary Health Studies and a Post Graduate Certificate in Health Care and Higher Education (LTHE). She is a Fellow of the Institute of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.Jill Caldwell is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at Oxford Brookes University. She has a BSc in Community Health Care and a Masters in Higher Professional Education and has been teaching both undergraduate and postgraduate nursing students for 10 years. During this time she has also been involved in teaching on the Non-Medical Prescribing course offered at Oxford Brookes University.

• 1. Legislation and standards ; 2. Patient safety and error reduction ; 3. Principles of pharmacology ; 4. Pharmaceutics and routes of drug formulations ; 5. Groups at special risk of adverse effects ; 6. Information and evidence: sources and evaluations ; 7. Medicines management: systems and procedures ; 8. Medicines management: drug calculations ; 9. The nurse's role in promoting concordance ; 10. Keeping up to date

The safe use of medicines is everybody's business. I welcome this medicines management publication for nurses that provides comprehensive information on best practice, science and regulation of medicines.