Current status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 29 January 2026
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will review the prescribing powers of (a) district nurses and (b) community care providers to allow for immediate adjustments to continence product absorbency or quantity without GP referral, and what assessment it has made of the impact of current administrative barriers on the dignity of palliative patients.
We want people who need continence support to receive the care that is right for them and their medical circumstances, including those with palliative care needs.
Patient assessment and the subsequent prescription of continence products are typically the responsibility of local continence teams given their specialist knowledge. GPs would not be expected to play a role in the prescription of continence products after a patient has been referred to, and assessed by, the Board’s continence team. Given this, we would expect any changes to a patient’s prescription to be agreed by the continence team to ensure that the new product is appropriate for the patient and will fully meet their needs.
It is also important to reflect that community Practitioner Nurse Prescribers (who are mainly district nurses, specialist community public health nurses (formerly health visitors), and school nurses) with prescribing qualifications known as v100 or v150 qualifications, can prescribe any appliance or reagent in the relevant Drug Tariff from the Nurse Prescribers Formulary (NPF) for Community Practitioners, including incontinence appliances to help ensure that patients are supported appropriately and their dignity is respected. As such we currently have no plans to review prescribing powers.