Lawyers are seeking guidance from the Medical Board of Australia, amid growing uncertainty about the medicolegal risks faced by doctors signing partnership agreements with RNs allowing them to prescribe.

Formal written agreements with doctors or nurse practitioners are a mandatory part of the RN prescribing model and are meant to document when an RN can initiate and cease medications, along with the conditions and indications for which they can prescribe.

With endorsed RN prescribers able to apply for a PBS provider number from 1 October, AHPRA has already declared that they will remain responsible and accountable for their prescribing decisions, stressing doctors would not be acting as their supervisors.

But a leading medical defence organisation says the extent of a doctor’s own responsibility under the partnerships — and therefore their potential exposure if something goes wrong — is still far from clear.