Repeat Prescriptions fulfilled at GP surgeries

[citizenB]

When we first moved to the area we now live and registered with a GP Surgery, we were told that they offered a "service". Prescriptions could be fulfilled by their on site pharmacist.

 

If you have a paper script to take to somewhere like Boots or independent pharmacy, you have to drop the script off then wait an hour for it to be ready.

 

It is a 22 mile round trip and including the waiting time, the time you need to set aside (if you are just going for the drugs) is around 2 hours.

 

So we decided to take up the offer of collecting from the surgery.

 

Around 5 years ago, they put in place a procedure where you had to put in your repeat prescription, 7 days before you required them. Without fail, you would then turn up at the surgery only to find that the prescriptions were not read for collection - you could hang around for up to an hour before they got their act together. Or go away and come back later. The surgery is a 6 mile round trip.

 

Over the last 18 months we are finding more and more that they are not only not ready, but their supplier is unable to provide one or more of the drugs that hubby takes. - so you are then given a paper script to take to Boots.. see palaver above !

 

IMHO this is not good practice, should they not tell us earlier that they are not going to be able to fulfil the whole prescription ?

 

Who do I take this up with? because the surgery just seems to shrug this off.

 

Do others have this issue with repeat prescriptions ?

[silverfox1961]

Morning,

You could have a word with the practice manager to see if they can gee up the pharmacy a bit. I know Boots do a home delivery service. Have you thought about taking advantage of that?

 

Is your practice part of the EMIS scheme? I use it for ordering and having my script delivered.

 

https://patient.emisaccess.co.uk/Account/Login?ReturnUrl=%2f

[citizenB]

Thanks Silverfox - I will do that.

 

I will also ask if they are part of the EMIS system - they did have some kind of internet access a few years ago, but the darn thing was more down than working!

[Dotty50]

My surgery is part of the scheme and it is really good, you can order your repeat prescriptions and book an appointment.

 

They have also gone on to an electronic system whereby you complete a form telling them which chemist you use and instead of having to collect your prescription from the docs, they send it electronically to the chemist and you simply go to collect your medication.

 

I tried it last week for the first time and it worked perfectly.

[citizenB]

- thanks Dotty

[Conniff]

My huge bag of repeat prescriptions don't require any input or effort whatsoever from me.

 

 

Say the doc gives pills for a month, then a few days before that month is up we just pop into the chemist and the bag is waiting for us all done. They handle

passing the paperwork back and forth between surgery and themselves.

 

 

Ive' see ads on tv by Lloyds pharmacy, they will do all the work and deliver free.

 

 

http://www.lloydspharmacy.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/PrescriptionCategoryView?catalogId=11101&storeId=10151

[think about it]

Is this a dispensing surgery or one with an attached pharmacy?

 

We're a dispensing surgery and so have our own trained staff and stock/wholesalers, on the other hand a colleague of mine in another surgery has an attached pharmacy over which she has no control.

 

Here we ask for 48 hours notice for a repeat prescription, this is regardless of whether it's a dispensed script or just a signed one to go to a chemist, the reason being that pinning a GP down to sign 50/60 of them often involves some tea and biscuit related bribery... Especially as they'll be in clinics all day it often happens 'after hours'.

 

There's a few reasons why your surgery might not be able to react so quickly, the first is if they get daily deliveries or not. Dependant upon the geographical location some wholesalers will only offer 3/4 day turnaround on orders. We're often able to get medication delivered either the next day or within 48 hours as despite the fact that we're rural, we're not far from civilisation. Equally, if it's an attached pharmacy run by a seperate company, they may not order the medications until they've got a signed script. If the surgery takes 2 days to process these and then 2 or 3 days to get the delivery then the time quickly adds up.

 

We work with 3 wholesalers, there are times where none of them have what we need in stock, we don't have the physical space to build up a massive amount of stock (about a weeks worth at best of the most common medications) and so we're reliant on our wholesalers to keep us moving, as are just about every other dispensing practice. Unfortunately if the wholesalers don't have, neither do we. It's only then we'd ask someone to go to another chemist to see if they have it available. Sadly, even though it's medication it's much like anything else, if it's not available to us then it's not available to you. This is made worse by manufacturers entering into sole distributor agreements so if they go out of stock we're basically stuffed.

 

In all honesty, it makes no sense for us to ask you to go elsewhere as anything other than a last resort to make sure you get your medication. We get a dispensing fee from the health board to help cover the costs of staff, premises etc. It's not mega money but any PM would prefer to keep it 'in-house'.

 

A few people have mentioned EMIS, EMIS is the clinical system we use to hold all of the relavent information and it's the screen you see your GP putting information into whilst you're with her/him. It has an online feature which can be enabled to offer repeat prescription ordering. Dependant upon your surgery you're likely to be either on EMIS or another system called INPS Vision. Both do the same thing, just like Firefox and Chrome I guess. There's a nationwide push to upgrade surgeries from the old server based versions of this software onto secure cloud based systems. If your surgery has done this upgrade then the functionality will be there even if it's not been switched on yet. I've recently introduced online ordering here (we've done appointments for years) and so far it's been very well recieved. Whilst actually switching it on was a matter of a few clicks, the training of staff and updating of safety and standard operating procedure can take a little longer so if it's not already on offer, do suggest it to your PM.

[silverfox1961]

And let's not forget about electronic prescriptions which is being rolled out across the country. At the moment in my surgery, patients who attend for a GP appointment get their script done electronically but those that use Patient Access still get a repeat slip within the bag.

 

I think this will take off once it is fully up and running. Nominate a pharmacy and the script is transferred to them with you not having any paper to carry.

[Nystagmite]

Waiting an hour for your medication seems to be a long time. I, depending on where I go, wait 10-20 minutes at most.

 

You have my sympathy regarding the chemist not having the medication - this has happened many times with me and has meant that I've had to go some 24 - 48 hours without any medication whatsoever.

[citizenB]

think about it. Thank you for your input to this It is a dispensing surgery. As you probably guessed from my first post -- I live in the back of beyond, so having the facility of NOT having to go into town was great news, but now it appears that I have to hang around at both the surgery and the chemist in town. Whilst I appreciate that the dispensing fee might not be big bucks, is it not a bit naughty of my surgery to take the dispensing fee for giving me half the prescription, where I still have to go to an independent pharmacy to fulfil most of it ?

[think about it]

think about it. Thank you for your input to this It is a dispensing surgery. As you probably guessed from my first post -- I live in the back of beyond, so having the facility of NOT having to go into town was great news, but now it appears that I have to hang around at both the surgery and the chemist in town. Whilst I appreciate that the dispensing fee might not be big bucks, is it not a bit naughty of my surgery to take the dispensing fee for giving me half the prescription, where I still have to go to an independent pharmacy to fulfil most of it ?

 

Not necessarily, the dispensing fee is a per item payment rather than a per script payment so as far as the surgery is concerned it makes good sense to provide as much as they can to you, equally that's what our health board expect us to do to provide as good a service as possible. Like I say, we see the 'Script for Chemist' as a bit of a last resort. It results in more work (at least two seperate scripts) and mainly is a pain for patients to have to go into town to get it filled.

 

In all honesty, the wholesalers buying experience is a lot like amazon. You search on their site for what you're looking for, sometimes it'll be in stock - other times it won't. What's worse is when it's indicated as being in stock and then doesn't arrive or gets 'switched' from another depot. We quite often end up getting one tub of moisturiser or one pack of tablets that have been out of stock in one of the supplier's distribution centres so they've used stock from another. Now, when that other depot is in Lanarkshire and we're in Wales it takes a while to get here, especially as it normally stops off at their other depot for a coffee or something...

 

Dispensing is a service which we do our level best to help people with, but just like ASDA if our suppliers can't supply us then there's precious little we can do. Nothing says that we don't absolutely appreciate the importance of people's medication but when faced with a supply issue we do the only thing we can which is make sure you can get it from somewhere. I'd love the space and resource to fully stock a pharmacy - instead I have the space that we have, about the size of a small bedroom with the walls lined with shelves and a few worktops all groaning under the weight of the most commonly used medications.

 

It's interesting too that we're as open to price fluctuation as a petrol station is, we spend a great deal of time not only making sure we can get the meds but doing so at the best possible for the NHS and in times of open availabily we'll openly play the wholesalers off against one another.

[citizenB]

Righto, understood. In which case, we will try to be a little more understanding and perhaps telephone the surgery before setting out so we know if we have to go further into town as well.