Practice Implementation

How to implement these Standing Orders in individual Medical Centres

Carefully select the standing orders that are relevant to your practice.
Review the standing order to ensure that assessment, medications and follow-up as indicated in each standing order are appropriate for your practice setting.
Complete the “issue date” and “review date” section for each standing order that will be adopted.
Decide whether the standing orders will be countersigned after each use within a specified time frame or whether they will be audited each month. Complete this section for each standing order that will be adopted.
Complete the “medical centre or clinic” section for each standing order that will be adopted.
The medical practitioner/ nurse practitioner taking responsibility for overseeing each standing order within a practice setting needs to put their name/s, signature/s and date of authorisation in the “signed by issuer/s” section provided for each standing order that will be adopted.
Ensure any nurses who are going to be working under the specific standing order have had training and are deemed to be competent in the diagnosis and management of the condition specified within the standing order.
Each nurse has to be individually signed off as competent to work under each specific standing order under the “nurses operating under this standing order” section. Once the responsible medical practitioner/ nurse practitioner is satisfied that the nurse can work safely and independently under each standing order, then the nurse needs to add their name, signature and date to the bottom of the standing order.
Every 12 months the use of the standing order needs to be reviewed and reissued by the responsible medical practitioner/ nurse practitioner.
If at any stage the responsible medical practitioner/nurse practitioner leaves the medical centre, then another medical practitioner/ nurse practitioner will need to take responsibility for the standing order and complete the issuer details.