Repeat Prescriptions

Community Pharmacy Repeat Ordering Service:

Important changes to repeat prescription ordering

Following on from two successful pilots, we are working with NHS Warrington Clinical Commissioning Group to change the way repeat prescriptions are ordered for our practice.

These changes mean that if you are a registered patient with us, you will no longer be able to order repeat prescriptions at the pharmacies that dispense for us and instead you will be required to order your repeat prescription directly from us at the practice.

These changes will start from 16 January 2019

This means that from 16 January 2019 if you have your repeat prescriptions ordered by a pharmacy on your behalf, you’ll need to change the way you order your repeat medicines.

One way to order your repeat prescription is to use the tear off slip on the right-hand side of your prescription and drop it into your practice.

We ask you to only order medicine when needed. Please check how many days’ medicine you have before ordering a new prescription. Please don’t order until you have 7 to 10 days of medicines left. It takes the surgery 2–3 working days to issue a prescription.

Alternately, you may find the easiest way to order repeat prescriptions is via online ordering. Please contact your GP practice if you require further information about online ordering. You can also find How to Guides about accessing online GP services by visiting NHS England’s website https://www.nhs.uk/ and search 'GP online services'.

Some patients may be exempt from the changes. If you require pharmacy managed repeat prescriptions, you can still order through the pharmacy. Please ask at reception if you are unsure if you require pharmacy managed repeat prescriptions.

We know that change can bring challenges. Change is something that may be daunting, but it is necessary to ensure that we monitor and control medicines more closely for the benefit of patient safety.

We also have a duty to obtain good quality, safe and cost-effective services for the people of Warrington. Unused prescription medicines cost the NHS across the UK over £300 million every year.

You can help reduce this cost by taking responsibility for managing your own medicines effectively through:

• Having a regular medicine review with your GP practice Clinical Pharmacist

• Not ordering a medicine just because it’s on your repeat prescription. If you don’t need the medicine, please don’t order it. If you need the medicine again in the future you can still request it

For more information, please speak to a member of the reception team.

If you would like to register for online appointments and to order your repeat prescription please call in at reception to register. You will need to bring recent proof of address and photographic ID. (We have to ask for this in order to comply with our data protection regulations.)

Repeats can be obtained by ticking the items required on the printed list given with your last prescription. Your repeat prescription will normally be ready within 48 hours. More urgent requests will be accommodated.