NHS Lothian Shared Care Agreements

The NHS Lothian Policy and Procedures for the Shared Care of Medicines is available from the NHS Lothian Medicines Governance Policies page. Template documents relating to local shared care arrangements are available on NHS Lothian Policy Online.

For the purposes of this policy a medicine is considered to be eligible for a shared care arrangement if it can be initiated in secondary care and then prescribed by a GP in primary care and meets the following criteria:

• prescribed for a potentially serious condition
• complex (intended use likely to be outwith the clinical experience of a GP)
• relatively high adverse effects profile
• may require specific monitoring and dose titration
• new, or rarely prescribed

The template Shared Care Agreements (SCAs) on this page have been approved by the General Practice Prescribing Committee (GPPC) as supporting safe and effective care.

The Shared Care Agreements are for use between a General Practitioner (GP) and the Specialist Service. It is for the individual GP to determine whether the agreement is suitable for use and can be practicably implemented, with due regard to the resource requirements of the SCA.  Where an agreement is not entered into, the specialist service will be responsible for making arrangements for the patients prescription.