Shared Care

The shared care responsibility of prescribing involves the transfer of clinical responsibility from a hospital or specialist service to general practice, in which the patient’s GP is supported by a shared care agreement.

When a specialist considers a patient’s condition to be stable or predictable, they may seek the agreement of the GP concerned, and the patient, to take over responsibility for prescribing. The guidelines are intended to support the transfer of prescribing responsibility between the specialist and GP and act as an information resource to support clinicians which specifies the responsibilities of those involved in the patients care. They do not replace the need for good communication between the specialist and GP about sharing care for the individual patient. 

New shared care guidelines should be proposed at the HIOW Precribing Committee to allow specialists and GPs to decide on the need of a shared care guideline.

Shared Care Guidelines approved for use across HIOW Integrated Care System:

The HIOW PC is newly formed from the existing prescribing committees within the HIOW area. Therefore, shared care guidelines agreed by previous committees within these areas are currently under review to make them HIOW wide.  In the meantime they will continue to be active and can be found below.

For medicines used in mental health services provided by Southern Health, the shared care guidelines are hosted on the Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust website