You are sitting with the patient in front of you, a task delegated to you by the general practitioner, and a notepad to show what happened – and why you did what you did. Welcome to 2026.

From January 1, 2026, a regulatory change will allow general practitioners to delegate consultations, sick visits, and multidisciplinary meetings to nurses at the general practitioner's office. Helfo has referred to the change as «the first step towards more health professions in doctor's offices,» with the goal of relieving the general practitioner and building a broader team-based general practice.

For the nurse, this means more than organizational change. It means that tasks you may have previously done behind the scenes – calling a patient with new medication, making a follow-up visit, coordinating between the municipality and the doctor's office – can now be registered as a consultation with reimbursement. And it means that the documentation of what you did will be clearer in scope and legal weight than before.

The New System – What the Regulation Actually Allows

The change has been made in Regulation on grants for covering expenses for examination and treatment by a doctor. It allows the general practitioner to delegate specific tasks – consultations, home visits, and participation in collaborative meetings – to a nurse working at the same general practitioner's office.

Three things are worth noting:

The delegation is personal. It is the individual general practitioner who delegates, not the practice as a whole. You can only take on tasks from general practitioners you actually work for, and only for their registered patients.

The medical responsibility remains with the general practitioner. You are acting under the general practitioner's responsibility, not as an independent practitioner. This means that the general practitioner's assessment of what is justifiable to delegate is binding – and that the patient record must make it possible to see what has been done, who has done it, and what the general practitioner has subsequently assessed.

The tasks must be professionally sound. There is no list of what «always can» and «never can» be delegated. It is a professional assessment in each case. In practice, delegation will often be relevant where the patient is known to the office and the follow-up is routine: blood pressure monitoring, INR follow-up, wound care, follow-up after acute illness, sick visits for known chronic patients.

For the nurse, it is therefore neither a completely new subject nor a completely new role – but it is a formalization that means what you document is read in a different way.

What the law requires of you as a record keeper

The nurse has a duty to keep records according to the same basic rules as doctors. Healthcare Personnel Act § 40 states that the journal shall be kept in accordance with good professional practice and contain relevant and necessary information about the patient and the healthcare provided, and that it shall be easy for other qualified healthcare personnel to understand. The provision is profession-neutral – it also applies to you.

The Patient Journal Regulations specifies what is often included: reason for contact, examinations performed, assessments, treatment and care, medications, advice and information provided, as well as information about consent where applicable. In addition, it must be clear who entered the information – a requirement that was further tightened in a Supreme Court judgment from 2026 (HR-2026-372-A) who determined that the patient should be able to identify the record keeper upon inspection.

The practical reality is that the note you write will likely be read by at least three other people: the general practitioner who will take over follow-up, colleagues who see the patient during on-call hours, and—not least—the patient themselves during record review. A good nursing note in a general practice office is therefore not an internal working note. It is part of the patient's record, just like the doctor's.

What's new - and what isn't

Much of the documentation work will be familiar to you from hospitals, home care, or municipal health services. What's new with a primary care practice is the rhythm and the shift in context. In an inpatient ward, the note is often part of a larger ongoing process. In a primary care practice, the individual consultation is often the entire document – the patient will be home in half an hour, and the next meeting might be in six months.

It means that what may is in the note, is more tightly defined. Five points are hard to get around:

  • Why the patient is there. Brief reason for contact in the patient's own words where possible.
  • What you actually did and found. Measurements, observations, test results, treatment.
  • Your clinical assessment. The differential diagnostic thoughts that you rejected are often worth noting.
  • What the patient was told and consented to. Especially important where further treatment, referral, or medication change is relevant.
  • What the further plan is – and who is responsible. Will you follow up yourself? Should the GP assess? When is the next contact?

The last point is particularly important in the delegation model. When several people are to be able to take over the case, the memo must show where the «ball» lies.

Time – as always

Nurses are no strangers to the burden of documentation. We have previously written about how much time nurses spend on documentation. and about Record keeping in home care where minutes between the car and the next patient rarely suffice. The same dynamics will follow you into the GP's office: the consultation is short, the note is often intended to be written «in the meantime,» and «meantime» is rarely found.

It's the same mechanism We have described to the general practitioners when the record-keeping is shifted later in the day. – The quality doesn't falter because you can't, but because the memory of what was actually said fades before you get it written down. This can be surprising for a nurse undertaking their first delegated consultation block. You have likely performed each individual task before – but not necessarily at a pace where each individual meeting must stand as its own document.

This is how speech-to-text can support you

Medivox is built for exactly these types of situations: short meetings with clear tasks, where what you say out loud is what the medical record actually needs.

Specifically, it can mean:

  • The patient's medical history given at the door ends up in the note in the patient's own words, not in a summary you have to remember.
  • The observations you mention while measuring blood pressure, looking at a wound, or going through the medication list are documented as they are made.
  • Patient information, consent, and further planning will be clearly documented – not as an afterthought.
  • You have a structured draft to build on when the next patient comes in, not a blank notebook

The patient's name and directly identifiable data are removed before the transcription is processed, and all data processing occurs in Norwegian data centers. You make the final assessment, correct, supplement, and sign the note – exactly as it should be. The tool does not replace your professional judgment; it prevents your judgment from drowning in typing between patients.

A new role, same professional craftsmanship

The delegation scheme is an opportunity for both general practitioner offices and for nurses who take on greater responsibility in general practice. It requires new routine building, new documentation practices, and a coordination between the doctor and the nurse that did not necessarily exist before. But the professional craft – seeing the patient, assessing correctly, and documenting what was done – is the same as it has always been. Only the framework around it has changed.

The note you write after a delegated consultation in 2026 is the next thing a nurse or GP will read in 2027. It's what tells what kind of healthcare the patient actually received. Then, both you and the patient deserve a tool that lets you concentrate on the meeting instead of the keyboard.

Frequently Asked Questions

What tasks can the general practitioner delegate to me as a nurse?
The regulation allows for consultations, sick visits, and interdisciplinary meetings for patients that the GP themselves is following up on. It shall be professionally sound in each individual case, and the delegation is personal from the individual GP.

Who has the medical responsibility when I perform a delegated task?
The medical responsibility remains with the general practitioner who has delegated the task. As a nurse, you have independent professional responsibility to perform the task properly and document it in the patient's record.

Do I have to keep records the same way the doctor does?
Yes. The duty to keep records in Section 40 of the Health Personnel Act and the Patient Record Regulations is profession-neutral. The note must be relevant, necessary, easy for other qualified health personnel to understand – and it must be clear who made the entry.

What is the most common pitfall for nurses taking over delegated consultations?
The note does not make it clear what the next step is – should the nurse follow up themselves, should the GP assess, or should the patient be contacted again? When multiple people are to be able to take over the case, the plan must be explicit.

How can speech-to-text help me specifically?
By having what you say during the consultation – the patient's description, your observations, assessments, and agreements – captured and structured as a draft journal entry before the next patient comes in, you avoid starting from scratch. You sign the final entry, but don't have to begin from a blank screen.

Use Medivox for free – Get started completely free

Are you a nurse at a GP's office considering the delegation scheme, or a GP planning to delegate? Contact us – We'll show you how Medivox can support both you and your colleague in the new division of labor.

Sources: