Patient safety and medicines
The Misuse of Drugs Act and Regulations in everyday Singapore practice: prescriptions, registers, custody, opioid and hypnotic guidance, diversion and regulation 19
Doctors, dentists, pharmacists, nurses and midwives in Singapore who prescribe, supply, administer or store controlled drugs, and allied health professionals, optometrists and opticians who care for patients taking them.
Structured learning and a written reflection to show insight after a complaint, an investigation or a board inquiry.
Focused learning on a core standard of practice, with a certificate and reflection for your portfolio.
A practical, law-based course on prescribing, supplying, administering and storing controlled drugs in Singapore. It explains how the Misuse of Drugs Act 1973 and the Misuse of Drugs Regulations work with HSA licensing, MOH Circular 56/2019 on handling controlled drugs and the professional boards' codes, and turns the rules that matter most into everyday routines: valid prescriptions, the pharmacist's check, safe custody, registers, stock counts, wastage and witnessed destruction.
It is written for doctors, dentists, pharmacists, nurses and midwives, and for allied health professionals, optometrists and opticians who care for patients taking controlled drugs. It applies MOH's National Guidelines for the Safe Prescribing of Opioids (2021), MOH's 2008 guidance on benzodiazepines and other hypnotics, the restrictions on codeine cough mixtures, the collaborative prescribing guidelines and the SMC Handbook's standards on treating yourself and those close to you.
Controlled-drug concerns, especially long-term hypnotic and benzodiazepine prescribing, register failures and diversion, are a recurring source of disciplinary action, HSA and CNB involvement and patient harm. The course also covers the regulation 19 duty to notify suspected drug addicts, recognising diversion and impaired colleagues, the risk of undertreating pain, respectful communication across languages and with caregivers, and how to build and show safe practice through audit.
10 sections · 25 lessons · 3 hours (estimated) · 20-question final assessment
Final assessment
20scenario-based questions
Certificate of completion
A certificate of completion for your learning portfolio.
The course includes a structured reflective account template: guided prompts to record what you learned, how you will apply it and how the change will show in your practice. It gives you written evidence of insight after a concern, and a ready record for your CPD portfolio.
Write it in your own words and leave out anything that could identify a patient, a colleague or a case. If you have an open complaint or case, talk to your adviser before reflecting on it in writing.
The patient's name and address, the prescriber's name, signature and practising address, the date, dosage form, name and strength of the preparation, dose, and total quantity in words and figures, with instalment directions where used. Dentists add 'for dental treatment only'. The prescription is valid for 30 days, and the prescriber's address must be in Singapore.
Anyone authorised to supply Second or Fourth Schedule drugs keeps a register in the prescribed form, with entries on the day of the transaction or the next day, in indelible ink. Entries must never be cancelled, obliterated or altered; corrections are made by dated marginal note or footnote. Registers are kept for three years from the last entry.
A doctor who attends a person they consider, or have reasonable grounds to suspect, is a drug addict must notify the Director of Medical Services and the Director of the Central Narcotics Bureau within seven days, with the person's particulars and the grounds for suspicion. The course explains how to discuss this honestly with patients and refer them for treatment.
Yes. It applies MOH's 2008 guidance on benzodiazepines and other hypnotics (short courses, no concurrent use, referral beyond a cumulative eight weeks), the 2021 National Guidelines for the Safe Prescribing of Opioids, and the 2021 restrictions on codeine cough mixtures, including the supply limits.
Yes. It covers the nurse in charge's responsibility for ward stock, safe administration of high-alert opioids, the pharmacist's legal and clinical check, collaborative prescribing limits, registers, stock counts, wastage, destruction and recognising diversion or an impaired colleague.
It can support remediation by explaining the standards a board is likely to apply and showing you how to audit and change your practice.
About three hours, online and self-paced, with knowledge checks after each section and a final assessment of 20 scenario-based questions with an 80% pass mark. Whether it counts towards CME or CPE depends on your board or the relevant accreditor.
Every legal and regulatory point comes from primary sources: the Acts that set up each professional board, the boards' own codes and guidance, and the Ministry of Health. Anything we cannot confirm is left out.
Lessons, scenarios and assessment questions are written by us for each edition separately, then checked for accuracy, teaching quality and fair assessment before publication.
When a code, standard or law changes, the affected courses are reviewed and updated. Reported errors in legal or regulatory facts are corrected first.
Prescribe safely and lawfully in Singapore: prescribing authority, valid prescriptions under regulation 2, collaborative prescribing, controlled drugs and hypnotics, telemedicine and boundaries.
Prevent, catch and respond to medication errors across prescribing, reconciliation, dispensing, administration and monitoring, built on Singapore law and the national high-alert medication guidelines.
SPC competency standards and Code of Ethics in practice, registration and CPE, safe supply, HSA licence duties, supervision and the SPC complaints process.
