Legal and Medical Issues Associated With Medication

This chapter addresses the professional, legal and ethical issues associated with medicine management and the role of the nurse. To ensure safe practice, it is imperative that safeguards are recognised and applied; therefore pertinent legislative frameworks, policy and professional regulation are discussed. Safeguarding patients when administering prescribed medicines means the nurse must have up-to-date knowledge and skill, and a key aspect of this is to ensure consent to treatment from the service user is secured; for this reason drawing on relevant legislation, the consensual process is reviewed.

Not infrequently, medicine management provokes ethical and legal challenges for the healthcare professional; these demand reflection and careful consideration; consequently in this chapter legal and ethical parameters and professional boundaries are appraised.