Pharmacists in the UK were granted supplementary prescribing rights in 2003, subject to further training. Most of those now qualified are practising in general medical practices and hospitals. This qualitative study explores GP and pharmacist perceptions of the introduction of pharmacist supplementary prescribing, focusing on the consequences for professional boundaries, power relations and knowledge. GPs have delegated some routine work in specific chronic conditions, and a limited amount of decision making, to pharmacists, (albeit within tightly controlled boundaries). But diagnosis has remained firmly in the hands of GPs; work being delegated in areas where the pharmacist was minimally required to exercise diagnosis and clinical judgement. GPs have continued to exercise control over inter‐professional boundaries.

PAGES
125 – 139
DOI
All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Issues
Also in this issue:
-
Agnes Horvath, Magic and the Will to Science: A Political Anthropology of Liminal Technicality
-
Gibson Burrell, Ronald Hartz, David Harvie, Geoff Lightfoot, Simon Lilley and Friends, Shaping for Mediocrity: The Cancellation of Critical Thinking at our Universities
-
Bas de Boer, How Scientific Instruments Speak: Postphenomenology and Technological Mediations in Neuroscientific Practice
-
Bjørn Lomborg, False Alarm
-
How does innovation arise in the bicycle sector? The users’ role and their betrayal in the case of the ‘gravel bike’
Beating the Bounds? The Introduction of Pharmacist Supplementary Prescribing in the UK National Health Service
Original Articles