Respecting duty of care and patient safety when training and prescribing
Abstract
Non-medical personnel providing injectable aesthetic treatments is often a hot topic, which is met with unanimous disapproval from aesthetic nurses. Sharon Bennett details why this is the case, highlighting the nurses's code of conduct and how patient safety is at the heart of the profession
Should doctors, nurses and dentists train non-medical personnel to administer injectable aesthetic treatments and prescribe for them? This question was raised on the British Association of Cosmetic Nurses (BACN) Facebook forum, culminating in a consensus of disapproval of the training of and prescribing for non-medical practitioners.
The principles of the Nursing and Midwifery Council's (NMC) Code (NMC, 2019a) must not be forgotten. These require aesthetic practitioners to act, at all times, within the patient's best interest and be able to demonstrate their own competency for all they do, as well as the competency of those they delegate to.
One could postulate training someone else in healthcare is akin to delegating a task, and that, therefore, those training others are responsible for ensuring that the training meets the NMC delegation requirements.
The same applies to prescribing for others and delegating the administration of medicines, which has its own set of standards (Royal Pharmaceutical Society, 2016).
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