Repeat prescriptions
Last Updated: Tuesday, 27 August 2024Repeat prescriptions allow you to obtain further supplies of your regular medications without needing to see a GP every time. The following procedures should be used to request medications that a GP has added to your repeat prescription list - you will be told when we have done this. They should not be used to request a further issue of an acute (one-off) prescription.
The majority of our repeat prescriptions are for either 56 or 28 days, in accordance with the Sefton Prescribing Policy. Some exceptions to this are as follows:
- There is a good clinical reason why the prescriptions should be less than 28 days, e.g. medication doses are being changed frequently or we are concerned that a patient may not take their medication correctly... 7 or 14 day prescriptions may be appropriate
- Prescriptions for hormone replacement therapy & contraceptive pills, where the medications often come in 84 day packs... 168 day prescriptions may be appropriate if the patient's monitoring is up to date
- A patient is going on holiday abroad... up to 84 days of medication may be prescribed, according to current NHS guidelines.
When your prescription will be ready to collect
Repeat prescriptions normally take up to two complete working days for us to process - for example, a repeat prescription requested on a Friday afternoon will usually have been processed by the following Wednesday morning. However, there are a number of clinical issues that might delay a repeat prescription:
- A patient safety issue is identified
- A medication review is overdue
- A chronic disease review is overdue
- Any critical medication monitoring is not up to date
- A minimum time interval between prescriptions has been breached.
Please allow a further full working day for your pharmacy to process the prescription before collecting your medication from them.
Urgent repeat prescription requests
If a patient requires a repeat prescription more urgently than this, then the patient or their carer should contact NHS 111, either online or by phoning 111. However, the following essential medications may be requested urgently via our reception:
- Insulins
- Long-term steroid tablets: e.g. prednisolone, hydrocortisone, budesonide
- Reliever inhalers: e.g. salbutamol, terbutaline
- Adrenaline pens
- Epilepsy medications: e.g. lamotrigine, carbamazepine, topiramate, sodium valproate, levetiracetam
- Anticoagulants ("blood thinners"): e.g. warfarin, edoxaban, apixaban, dabigatran, rivaroxaban, dalteparin, enoxaparin
- Injectable medications being administered at the end of life
- Lithium
Repeated acute prescription requests
All of the above information relates to repeat prescriptions. However, GP surgeries also issue acute medications - these are a ‘one-off’ prescription - for example, a short course of treatment or until a patient has been stabilised on a new medication.
To request a prescription for an acute medication that you have had before, or if you have misplaced your tick slip for requesting a repeat prescription, please complete our prescription request form & email it to gp.n84613@nhs.net or pass it into our reception.
The form must be completed in full, otherwise we regret that it cannot be processed safely. Please contact us after two complete working days to see if a doctor has been able to issue the prescription, based on the information provided.