Our policy regarding Emergency Prescriptions

We require a minimum of two working days to process a patient’s requests for repeat medication. This allows the doctor sufficient time to make the checks necessary to ensure patient safety. Wherever possible, this is done by a doctor who is familiar with the patient. Making special arrangements to provide “emergency prescriptions” on the day requested interrupts a doctor’s scheduled work, which has a detrimental effect on the service we can provide for other patients, and is potentially unsafe.

The duty doctor is required to assess acutely unwell patients in the surgery and at home if needed, attend to urgent contact from medical professionals in the surgery and hospital, and at times attend to the dying or deceased.

For these reasons, we will issue emergency prescriptions only when it is clinically necessary to do so. In these cases we will issue sufficient medication for 7 days only.

• Emergency Prescriptions will be available to collect from the surgery after 18:00.
• Emergency Prescriptions will not be sent to a  locale pharmacy for collection.

Emergency Prescription List

The GP Partners have reviewed the medicines we prescribe and have produced a list of items for which we will, if necessary, issue an emergency prescription. These are considered by Fernville and most other practices to be emergency medications, without which the patient could suffer significant harm within two working days. If the medicines you need are not on this list, you should make a routine request and allow a minimum of two working days before collecting your prescription.

The following are considered to be emergency medications, without which the patient could suffer significant harm within three working days. Missing doses of these medications may compromise their efficacy, or cause significant harm for the patient.

• Salbutamol / Ventolin reliever spray, Terbutaline / bricanyl
• GTN spray – Glyceryl trinitrate
• Medications for an arrhythmia – Verapamil / Diltiazem / Amiodarone / Bisoprolol, Propranolol / Atenolol
• Oral nitrates – Isosorbide Mononitrate (ISMN)
• Insulin
• Adrenaline pen – Epipen
• Contraceptive pills (28 days supply will be provided)
• Oral steroids (Prednisolone / Dexamethasone) if used as a daily, long term medication
• Palliative care patient medications
• Lithium / antipsychotics – Olanzapine, Risperidone
• Methotrexate / DMARDs – hydroxychloroquine
• Warfarin / NOAC – Rivaroxaban / Apixaban
• Parkinson’s disease medications
• Anti-epileptics – Phenytoin / Sodium Valproate / Levetiracetam
• Specialised baby milks

Holiday Medication

We do not provide emergency prescriptions for holiday medication. Holidays are often booked weeks or months in advance. When preparing for a holiday you should consider holiday insurance, sun protection, transport and your routine medication. Please ensure you allow a minimum of two working days for your request to be processed. Please note we can supply a maximum of two months’ medication. If you are travelling for a longer period, you will need to make arrangements to obtain medication locally.

Hospital prescriptions

If you have been seen at the hospital, you may have been given a 2 week hospital prescription. You should not leave the hospital without seeing the hospital pharmacist. As the hospital prescription is not valid in community pharmacies. If the hospital pharmacy is closed, you should make arrangements for the medication to be collected the next day. Some hospital medications are not licensed to be prescribed by GPs. If a hospital doctor has written to the practice asking your GP to prescribe medication, we require a minimum of two working days to process this request.

Repeat Medication

We have made a commitment to issue prescriptions, wherever possible, within two working days from receiving the request. Repeat medication can be requested in reception, through your pharmacist, or by email and online. We do not take prescription requests over the phone. Patients should be aware at least a week in advance that they will need a new prescription. If you have difficulty organising prescription requests, please discuss this with your pharmacist, a relative or neighbour or the receptionist at the surgery.

Please respect our staff

We have instructed our reception and administrative staff to follow this policy and they are not authorised to make any exception. They are not allowed to interrupt the duty doctor. We will not tolerate any abuse of our staff as they follow these instructions given by the Partners. Thank you for your cooperation.