Repeat Prescription Policy

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Turnaround

Your prescription will be ready for collection from the surgery or will be despatched to the local pharmacy of your choice two working days (48 hours) after we receive your request. Your Pharmacy may require additional time to prepare your medication.

On average the Courtside Surgery issues over 18,000 prescription items every month to patients (that’s roughly 900 items for each working day). Our prescription team will review each individual prescription request to ensure that your request is safe and appropriate and that the necessary blood tests and reviews are in place. Once these checks are done, your prescription request is then sent to the GP for signing or reviewing. Prescription signing often takes place after or in between patient clinics. The prescription will then be sent electronically to the Pharmacy where further safety and clinical checks take place prior to dispensing and/or ordering your medicine for you. 

Urgent Prescription Requests

It is your responsibility not to run out of medication before your prescription has been processed. Due to the large volume of prescription requests received and to ensure that we can process requests safely, the cut off time for prescriptions needed ‘on the day’ is 12pm.

‘On the day’ or urgent prescription requests received after 12pm will be processed by the GP Practice the following day.

Urgent Prescription Requests for medicines needed on the day before 12pm

You will need to telephone the GP Practice and explain why you require your medicine today. The reception team can then either forward this request to the prescription team or put you through directly to discuss it further. Please be advised the prescription team may need to contact you during the day for further information if necessary.

Due to the large volume of emails received each day, you should not email your request as we cannot guarantee this will be read and actioned on the day.

Urgent Prescription Requests for medicines needed on the day after 12pm

If you are requesting an urgent prescription request for the same day after 12pm, you are required to contact your local Community Pharmacist so they can assess whether an Emergency Supply is appropriate to cover you until your prescription is ready and manage your request with us if this is not appropriate.

Otherwise, ‘on the day’ or urgent prescription requests received after 12pm will be processed by the GP Practice the following day in line with standard policy.

Only a limited range of controlled drugs can be supplied by the Pharmacist due to legal restrictions but they will be able to signpost you to the most appropriate route for obtaining these medicines such as 111, Out of hours or discuss this further with us directly.

NHS - Out-of-hours medicines

Early prescription requests

If you need your repeat prescription earlier than usual, please specify this along with the reason on your repeat prescription request. Failure to do so may result in the request being rejected because routinely we would not issue medicine too early for safety reasons and to avoid potential medicine waste.

Overdue blood tests and monitoring

It is important that what we are prescribing for you is being appropriately monitored and reviewed. If you are due a blood test or blood pressure check the practice will send two reminders either via text message or letter when processing your repeat prescription request. Following these reminders, if you have not booked in for these blood tests and/or checks, quantities of medicines will be halved at each supply until bloods and/or reviews take place. Following your review and tests being up to date, the quantity will be reverted back to the original quantity.

Prescribing Policy for patients travelling abroad

Under NHS legislation the NHS ceases to have responsibility for people when they leave the UK. However, the NHS accepts responsibility for supplying ongoing medication for temporary periods abroad of up to 3 months for stable, pre-existing health conditions. When determining the appropriate prescription for you, your GP will consider the medicine itself, your condition and how often your treatment needs reviewing or monitoring. If your medicines are deemed high risk, they may prescribe less than 3 months’ supply for your safety and further supplies will need to be obtained from a local doctor at your destination.

Patients who will be out of the country for longer than 3 months (e.g. extended holidays, staying with family abroad, travelling abroad for Winter months) must register with a local doctor for their continuing medical needs and medicine supply.  The GP practice should only supply enough medicine (up to 3 months’ worth) to enable you to register with a doctor abroad and obtain further supplies.

For more information, please see ‘Patients and prescribing rights and responsibilities FAQ’ section available on the British Medical Association website.