In Spain, the competencies of the nursing profession are constantly evolving and expanding. A lively debate is currently taking place on the possibility of nurses prescribing drugs without the prior intervention of a doctor. The Ministry of Health has published a draft law regulating the autonomous prescription of drugs by nurses. The bill has not yet (June 2025) been approved. Until now, nurses have been able to act only on a doctor’s prescription and following a care guide.
A press article published in Redacción Médica reports that the Ministry of Health is committed to the democratization of prescribing competence. This is the main conclusion drawn by the draft bill on Medicines and Medical Devices, whose parliamentary processing was approved on 8 April 2025 by the Council of Ministers. One of its main points is the inclusion of the nursing and physiotherapy professions in the group of healthcare groups qualified to prescribe drugs. An update which, if it receives the green light in the “Cortes Generales”, will mean that nursing will no longer depend on the indication guides.
The regulatory text states that nurses and physiotherapists will be able to prescribe drugs “within the competencies attributed to them”. This statement puts both professions on a par with those that traditionally prescribe, such as doctors, dentists and podiatrists.
Achieving full competency means that nurses do not have to resort to the guidelines for the indication, use and authorization of dispensing of prescription drugs. Thus, the performance of this healthcare profile will no longer be constrained by the list of pharmaceutical responses proposed in each manual. “The final objective is that the nursing graduate can choose which drugs to use in his or her area of competence, without depending on a catalog that specifies what they are,” the vice-president of the General Council of Nursing, José Luis Cobos, told Redacción Médica.
The General Council of Nursing considers that the reform of the drug law will be beneficial for the entire healthcare system.
