Clinical Care and Prescribing Program

Clinical care is one of the most frequent subjects of notifications. A missed diagnosis, a delayed referral, a result that was never followed up, a prescription that should have been reviewed: any of these can lead a patient, family member, colleague or employer to raise a concern. Most of these practitioners are competent, conscientious clinicians. The problem is usually a gap in a system, a habit or a specific area of knowledge, rather than a general failure.

The National Law calls this unsatisfactory professional performance: knowledge, skill or judgement, or care exercised, that falls below the standard reasonably expected of a practitioner of an equivalent level of training or experience. Prescribing concerns often sit alongside it, especially for drugs of dependence, where state and territory law, real-time prescription monitoring and Board expectations all apply. This program addresses both, and finishes with the teamwork and handover skills that catch errors before they reach patients.

• Practitioners with a notification or employer concern about clinical care, diagnosis, follow-up, competence or prescribing.
• Practitioners required to undergo a performance assessment, or working under supervision, audit or prescribing conditions.
• Prescribers of Schedule 8 and other high-risk medicines, including medical practitioners, nurse practitioners, endorsed midwives, dentists, optometrists, podiatrists and pharmacists where they prescribe.
• Practitioners returning to practice, changing scope or moving into a new setting where competence drift is a risk.
• Clinical leads and supervisors who want a shared language for patient safety, escalation and learning from incidents.

Prescribers in telehealth services should also consider the telehealth course in the Practice Compliance Program.

Performance concerns rarely turn on a single fact a practitioner did not know. More often they turn on habits: how results are tracked, how uncertainty is handled, how medicines are reviewed and how concerns are passed on. The program focuses on habits that hold up on a busy day.

Closing every loop

Every test you order has a named person responsible for the result, every referral has a follow-up date and every handover ends with confirmation that responsibility has been accepted.

Safety-netting that patients remember

Specific advice on what to watch for, when to return and where to go, recorded in the notes in a way another clinician could act on.

Reviewing before repeating

Every repeat prescription for a high-risk medicine is an active decision, informed by monitoring data, functional goals and a plan to taper or stop when the balance changes.

Saying when something is beyond you

Recognising competence drift, asking for help early and declining tasks outside your scope, without seeing it as weakness.

Performance concerns are best answered with evidence from your own practice. The program is built to generate it:

• a personal patient safety plan and a step-by-step personal audit template;
• a pre-signing prescribing checklist and a decision checklist for every drug of dependence prescription;
• a records checklist and a practice prescribing policy template you can adapt;
• a personal teamwork plan with handover, escalation and speaking-up phrases;
• reflective accounts on competence, prescribing and teamwork, and five certificates of completion.

An audit repeated after a few months is particularly persuasive because it shows change in what you actually do. If you are remediating, the Insight, Reflection and Remediation Program shows how to turn audits and reflections into a plan. The clinical care and prescribing and medicines concern pages explain how these notifications usually progress.

The five courses cost A$799 as a program, 25% less than buying them separately, with the saving applied in the cart. If you would rather choose your own mix, multi-buy gives 10% off any five courses.