Ordering a Repeat Prescription

 

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image depicting repeat prescriptions

Repeat Prescriptions

Patients on repeat medication will be asked to see a doctor, nurse practitioner or practice nurse at least once a year to review these regular medications. Please ensure that you attend your annual appointment to avoid unnecessary delays to further prescriptions.

It is your responsibility to order your medication each month and we ask you to note that we require 3 working days to process your requests and pharmacies often take a further 2 working days to have your medicines prepared, so please ensure you order in good time.

 

How to order your repeat prescription

We do not take prescription requests over the telephone unless you are medically housebound.

  1. Order Online Using The NHS App
  2. Order Online Using Our Secure Form
  3. In Person – Post a prescription request slip or written request in the Prescription post box at Leominster or Bodenham surgery
 

Electronic prescription service (EPS)

We much prefer to send your prescription electronically to the pharmacy of your choice.  This saves you having to attend the practice and queue at reception to pick it up and then queue again at the pharmacy. You can nominate your preferred pharmacy using the NHS App or advising us when you send in your order.

Learn more about the Electronic Prescription Service 

 

Bodenham Dispensing

We have provision to dispense to patients who live outside the town boundaries and who are registered at the branch surgery. The Health Service Regulations on this matter are very strict and this service can only be offered to those patients who register as 'dispensing' at the point of joining the practice when moving into the area.

 

Repeat Dispensing

This is an NHS development which may benefit people who have a stable, regular, repeat prescription. This is how it works: your doctor authorises prescriptions for a period of time - normally 6 months, but in some cases up to 12 months. Monthly prescriptions are lodged with the pharmacist of your choice for the whole period. You can then collect your medication from this pharmacy each month, without having to reorder your medication.

If you are interested in using this service please talk to the prescription line team.

 

NHS Spending versus Saving

Unused prescription medicines cost the NHS approximately £110 million a year. Medicine wastage is a serious and growing problem in the NHS.

Sometimes patients or carers with repeat prescriptions continue to get more medicines than they need and stockpile at home. This wastes millions of pounds and huge amounts of medicines.

So please help us to reduce wasted medicines by:

  • Only tick the items you need on your repeat prescription slip.
  • Check what medicines you still have at home before re-ordering.
  • Tell our pharmacist if you have stopped taking any of your medicines.
 

Consent for others to collect your prescription

Giving consent for others to collect your prescription from the Surgery on your behalf

Guidelines were issued recently suggesting that patients should give their consent for third parties to collect their prescription. As many of you will know, we never hand out prescriptions without asking the collector to first confirm the patient’s address, and have always felt that this should suffice.

We are sure you will agree that to obtain consent from over 6500 patients, record their consent and have a way of knowing exactly who is collecting (many people will use more than one person to collect their prescription for them) and then having to ask for identification at reception for every prescription we hand out (hundreds per day) would be very time consuming for both patients and staff at what is already a very busy reception desk.

As many patients are happy for other members of their family or friends to collect for them, we felt the best approach would be to work on the basis of dissent rather than consent. In other words, if you have a reason why you would not want anybody else to collect your prescription, or you just have one other named person who you would consent to collecting for you, then please complete one of our Prescription Third Party Dissent forms.

These can be obtained from our website via this secure online form or from the reception desk.

If you opt for nobody else to collect your prescription other than yourself, we will mark this on your records and any prescription that we print for you will be marked in the top left hand corner with ‘ONLY PATIENT TO COLLECT’ or “NOMINATED COLLECTOR”.

We are sure you will appreciate that not all of our receptionists will know every patient by name. You will therefore need to produce photographic ID every time you collect your prescription, unless of course the receptionist on duty knows who you are.

We hope that you will agree this is the most practical approach, given that many people are happy with our current system and would not want the hassle of having to produce ID when collecting a prescription. However, there are people who have good reasons why they would not want their prescription given to a third party and we feel that this gives such people the opportunity to register their dissent.