A shared care agreement is where a patient is managed by both primary and secondary care. Before accepting shared care of a patient, the GP must be fully aware of his/her responsibilities for monitoring, when to refer back to the consultant etc. The patient should be stabilised on the medication, and it should not be an unlicensed medicine or off licence use of a medicine. The GP should be aware that by prescribing for the patient under a shared care agreement they are accepting full legal and clinical responsibility.
Certain medicines are already included in agreements with various secondary and tertiary care establishments, therefore prescribing of these by the GP on FP10 effectively means that the PCT is paying twice. If in doubt, please contact the relevant PCT Prescribing Team or Hospital Pharmacy.
