Summary of Changes to WA Psychostimulant Prescribing Regulations which came into Force on 12th December 2024
By Dr Roger Paterson Professional Advisory Body (PAB) Chair
The new act frees up specialists a bit:
- Adult psychiatrists are able to prescribe as young as they feel competent to do so. Previously, they could prescribe routinely to 17-year-olds and older, but needed special permission for 15 and 16-year-old’s, and could not prescribe under 15 at all. Now they leave it up to the individual adult psychiatrist as to how low in age they are comfortable treating. Many adult psychiatrists would be happy treating teenagers.
- Less forms to fill out for notification of new patients and termination of ex-patients–not that forms were a major issue.
- The biggest change is more freedom for General Practitioners (GPs) and for the first time, Nurse Practitioners (NPs) to prescribe as below.
The new regulations get GPs and NPs more involved:
- If the specialist asks the GP/NP to get involved they can, but GP/NPs can only prescribe the same dose unless there are written instructions on dose-change parameters.
The GP/NP cannot change the type or formulation at all – the patient has to go back to the specialist for review if contemplating a change in medication type or formulation.
- The review interval for under 18s has not changed (annual) but has been pushed out from annual to no more than 3 years for adults (it is not clear how the health department will monitor this). Perhaps the new electronic prescription monitoring system, ScriptCheckWA, assist in this to provide reminders as, guaranteed, everyone will forget–patients, GP/NPs and specialists!).
