Urgent Prescription Request Policy

We experience a large volume of requests for prescription every day. In order to safely and efficiently carry this out we would like to make a policy of issuing acute prescriptions.

Medications other than the ones in this list will not be routinely issued on an urgent basis. Requests for routine prescription renewal would require 48 hours for the script to be processed for collection.

List of medication that would be issued urgently (please see policy below)

URGENT PRESCRIPTIONS REQUEST POLICY

Purpose

General Practice experiences a large volume of requests for prescriptions every day. In order to safely and efficiently undertake this function the East Cluster of General Practices has made a standard policy framework outlining the process and what drugs constitute and acute and urgent prescriptions. The management of urgent prescriptions support patients safely through less surgery interruptions and enabling the GPs to work uninterrupted.

Protocol

• When urgent medication is requested practices must establish whether it is the fault of the practice and the script was not produced as requested or the patient has left the request too late.

• If the practice establishes that this is not an error on the practices part, check against the provided list of medications classed by the Practice as urgent.

• If the prescription is deemed to be urgent, explain to the patient that it will be ready by 6pm that day, if the request is deemed not to be urgent the patient will be informed the request will be ready within 48 hours and that this will have no detriment to their health.

• Patients who repeatedly request their prescriptions on an urgent basis will receive a letter warning them that they must comply with the Practice’s Policy or potentially face removal from the Practice.

• Patients should be reminded that requests for routine prescriptions should be made well in advance to avoid medical lapses.

• Patients who do not comply with the policy will on the first occasion receive a confirmation slip reminding them of the process and on any subsequent occasion will receive a letter from the practice clearly statin the process and consequences of ignoring the policy.