Prescribing Schedule 8 (S8) Monitored Medications

Prescribing Schedule 8 medicines in Australia comes with strict legal and clinical responsibilities. These controls exist to protect patients from harm, support safe prescribing practices, and safeguard providers and practices from regulatory risk. Correctly identifying and managing Schedule 8 medications is a critical part of meeting these obligations and maintaining trust in the prescribing process.

Contents:

1. Schedule 8 Requirements

2. Drug Recipes

3. State-Specific Prescribing Rules

4. Related Further Reading

Schedule 8 Requirements

Due to legislative requirements, the Schedule 8 workflow requires some additional information to be entered during the prescription workflow:

1. The Days Btw Repeats field is mandatory, to indicate the interval between repeats.
   
    
    

2. If the prescription is not Private, the user will be asked to select or enter an Indication for the Authority, and enter the Approval No:
   
   
    

3. The provider will be asked to re-enter their password before finalising the prescription, to reduce the likelihood of a user gaining unauthorised access to the computer and creating their own prescriptions for restricted medicines. This is called reauthentication. See also Prescribing Schedule 8 Medications & Reauthenticating while using SAML or SSO.
   
    
    

4. The prescriber will receive a pop-up following the prescription workflow to remind them to handwrite any prescription details.
   

Note: This configuration is unable to be disabled, as it is required as part of the electronic prescribing and Schedule 8 Prescribing laws across Australia.

Schedule 8 Drug Recipes

When creating a Drug Recipe, you are provided with a field to flag whether the recipe contains a Schedule 8 Drug. If this field is set to Yes, then you will be directed through the Schedule 8 prescribing workflow above when prescribing that Drug Recipe.

If the "Schedule 8 Medication" field is set to No, then you will follow the standard workflow, and will not be asked for an approval number.

To check whether your Drug Recipe contains a Schedule 8 medication:

1. Open More > Resources

2. Click on Drugs

3. Select Recipes

4. Find the recipe, and tick the box beside it

5. Click Edit Recipe

6. Check whether the "Schedule 8 Medication" field is set to Yes or No 

7. Make any changes

8. Click Save

The workflow when prescribing the Drug Recipe will then be updated accordingly.

State-Specific Prescribing Rules

VIC: https://www.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-11/Drugs-Poisons-and-Controlled-Substances-Regulations-2017-Draft-Regulation.pdf

NT: requirements-of-prescriptions-for-s8-substances.docx

Related Reading

• Real-Time Prescription Monitoring (RTPM): Configuration & Quick Guide

• Prescribing: Provider Preferences

• Consumer Medicine Information (CMI) & Product Information (PI) Documents

• Medications: MediSpan Clinical Decision Support & Interactions Service