Professional standards for prescribers:

• Medical Council of New Zealand: Good prescribing practice
• Nursing Council of New Zealand: Competencies for the mātanga tapuhi Nurse Practitioner scope of practice
• Nursing Council of New Zealand: Competencies for nurse prescribers
• Pharmacy Council of New Zealand: Competence Standards for Aotearoa New Zealand Pharmacist Prescribers

Prescriber refers to any authorised prescriber (including designated prescribers or delegated prescribers), as determined by the Medicines Act 1981.

This could include medical practitioners, authorised nurses, nurse practitioners, and pharmacist prescribers.

Source: Principles for quality and safe prescribing practice

To satisfy legal and claiming requirements all prescriptions must include:

• Prescriber's usual signature (for printed or handwritten prescriptions).
• Date of the prescription – day, month, and year.
• Prescriber's details:
  • Full name.
  • Contact details – physical work address (or postal if no physical place of work), and telephone number.
  • Medical Council or Nursing Council registration number.
• Patient's details:
  • Surname and given name(s).
  • Physical address (a PO Box or rural RD number is not adequate), and telephone number.
  • Date of birth.
  • Patient’s NHI number.
  • Patient's category code.
• Medicine details:
  • Full name and strength (where appropriate) of the medication – use generic medicine names.
  • Form and strength and quantity of medicine (if appropriate).
  • Period of supply, repeats if any, or total amount of the product.

    This must be no more than 3 months' worth, unless an oral contraceptive, in which case 6 months' worth.

  • Dose and frequency of the dose.
  • Any additional information (such as age or weight) that might affect the dosage.
  • Clear instructions for use (e.g. for external medicines).

    If instructions are long and complex, provide the patient with printed information, for example from NZ Formulary.

Legal requirements of an ePrescription:

• generated via NZePS
• contains a unique barcode
• barcode used at the point of dispensing at the pharmacy.

Refer to Te Whatu Ora's guidance on Signature Exempt Prescriptions and remote prescribing for detailed information on signature-exempt prescriptions, and the temporary exemption for non-NZePS signature-exempt prescriptions.