Prescriptions

The purpose of our prescribing systems and the advice and rules we use with them is to allow people to have the right medicines when they need them.

We divide prescriptions into repeats, which may be intended to be regular, or expected to be used as required, and therefore repeated but irregularly, and acutes - medicine you are prescribed that is not really expected to be repeated. The Americans talk about refills, which is a useful idea. If something about your medicine has not yet been settled, or if providing it depends on some particular action, event or test, we may not add it to the repeat list. This means if you ask for it as a repeat, some delay and confusion may follow.

Please read the right hand side of your prescription. We put useful and interesting information on it. Please hang on to it, it will tell you exactly what prescriptions we think are your repeats, and exactly what we call them. Asking for your prescriptions using the names we use will save you and us time and effort and reduce mistakes. One way of asking is to tick the box on the right hand side of that prescription and send it to us, as a request for the next lot.

If you have a medicine you keep asking for which is not listed on your repeat list, and you would like it to be, ask us why. Some medicines are kept off the repeats list so that we give more attention to them each time we prescribe them or because the dose is likely to vary - examples include Warfarin.

Repeats may be given for one time-period, or for several. This can be by handing you more than one copy of the same prescription - use them as you need; by printing post-dated prescriptions, for a time-period at a time, dated a time-period apart, or by issuing a batch prescription which is a stack of paper providing for several issues in succession.

We do not dispense medicines for NHS prescriptions. We would be happy to, but there are pharmacists nearby, and they have the contracts for doing that. Feel free to tell your MP the rules on that should be changed.
You can get your medicines by asking us to send your prescription to a particular pharmacist, once, or until you change that instruction. You can collect your prescription from one of our front desks. You can send someone able to persuade us they represent you to collect it. You can ensure we have a stamped addressed envelope for you, and ask us to post it. You can ask us by telephone. You can arrange for www.pharmacy2u.co.uk to be your pharmacy, and your prescription will automagically get to them - someone still has to tell us you need it though.

Feedback

Does our repeat prescription system work for you? What improvements could be made? Comment in an email to feedback(at)iscamp.co.uk or on paper.

Time Period: We get a lot of pressure from the local NHS administration - called the Primary Care Trust this week - to prescribe a month at a time. They believe and repeatedly say, that this saves money. If you feel that it doesn't save you money or time, and that this matters as well, by all means tell them to rework their arithmetic.