Dispensary

Eligible patients who wish to use our dispensing service will be asked to register for it.

Current national legislation only allows us to dispense medication to patients who live more than one mile from the nearest pharmacy.  Once registered as a dispensing patient your medication can always be collected from the surgery’s dispensary.  In addition, your Doctor will be able to send your prescriptions electronically from the consulting room so that your medication will be ready for your to collect after the consultation – you will not need a prescription form for this.  Of course, dispensing patients can also use the local pharmacies if they choose but please inform your Doctor or Nurse prescriber before they issue the prescription if you wish to do this.

Whether or not you are a dispensing patient there will be no changes to prescription charges and the ordering of repeat prescriptions remains the same.  Please allow two, full working days between ordering repeat prescriptions and collection.  If you sign up to our text messaging service you will be sent a text message to update you on the progress of your medication.

Please note – current legislation is severely biased against dispensing practices.  If you sign up to ANY town pharmacy services you will immediately cease to be eligible for dispensing doctor services PERMANENTLY.  This particular legislation is there apparently to increase your ‘choices’ Once signed up to a pharmacy service you will not be allowed to re-register for dispensing services.  This is not a matter we have any say in.

Your Doctor may issue a prescription during a consultation.  For dispensing patients the prescription will be sent electronically to the dispensary where it will enter a queue to be processed by our qualified dispensers.

In order to minimise waiting the queue is prioritised for surgery patients and so these prescriptions will take precedent over repeat prescriptions.  For this reason please do not ask your Doctors to issue routine repeat prescriptions during consultations, as preparing and issuing several prescriptions safely takes time and will hold up other surgery patients who are waiting for their prescriptions.  The average wait time is usually less than 10 minutes.

Patients between the ages of 16-60 will be asked whether they pay for their prescriptions – for those patients who are exempt of prescription charges please bring evidence of your exemption with you.  All prescriptions must be paid for on collection unless you can provide an exemption certificate or pre-payment card.  It is important that you complete the back of the prescriptions correctly. 

Collection of repeat medication can be made during the following hours

Please allow 3 working days for your medication to be ready for collection.  This gives the staff time to process the request, order medication (for non-stock items), dispense and accuracy check your medications.  We require the full 3 days to allow for any supply/delivery issues from our suppliers which is totally out of our control.

Due to demand on our service we kindly ask you to collect (if possible) between 9.30am and 4.30pm.  CONTROLLED DRUGS must be collected between 9am and 5.30pm.  The dispensary is closed on a Wednesday afternoon and you will NOT be able to COLLECT any CONTROLLED DRUGS during this time.

Controlled Drugs: Please always ensure you have photo ID when collecting as certain controlled drugs require ID verification.

Even if you never open them, once medicines have left the Dispensary they cannot be recycled or used by anyone else.  Please return any unused medicines for safe disposal; if the pharmacy or hospital have dispensed your medication, please return to them.  If we have dispensed your medication for you at the Surgery, please return to us for safe disposal.  Unused medicines kept at home are a safety risk for children and others who might take them.

What is a Repeat Prescription?  Some prescriptions are authorised by your doctor as a repeat.  This means that you can obtain further prescriptions without having to see the doctor first.  These are called repeat prescriptions.  Prescriptions obtained for acute illnesses are not repeat prescriptions.  You can tell if you have an authorised repeat prescription because the details will be printed on the white tear off counterfoil attached to your prescription.  This will specify medication that is on repeat, the date you last had a repeat of a particular medication and the review date.  Most repeat prescriptions are issued for no more than one month’s treatment at a time.

If your Doctor agrees, you may obtain repeat prescriptions for regular medication without being seen on each occasion. Only medication previously authorised by the Doctor will be available.  In order to manage high levels of repeat requests and to minimise errors, we ask that you always allow at least THREE WORKING DAYS notice (excluding weekends and bank holidays) before collecting your prescription from the surgery.  For those patients collecting their repeats directly from a pharmacy please allow an additional day.

Changes can only be made with the Doctor’s permission and will take longer than the usual three days to process.

You may be entitled to exemption due to the following:

• Age
• Because you get certain benefits or tax credits
• Because you are pregnant or have had a baby in the last 12 months – Maternity Exemption
• Because you have a low income
• Medical Exemption for certain conditions

Information leaflets are available – HC1 and HC11 please ask for details.

If you are receiving repeat medication, good safe practice requires you to have medication reviews from time to time depending on the medication you are taking.  This is important to ensure that the medication is working and to assess whether the medication is still appropriate for you.  When your medication review is due, a reminder will show on your prescription counterfoil, this information will be passed to the doctor and a receptionist will contact you if an appointment is required.  

If you order online and cannot re-order your medication it may be due to the review date - please free text the items you require and we will contact the GP to review your medication.  Should an appointment be required we will contact you to arrange that.  We will also issue you with medication to ensure you have enough until your review appointment.

Please do not book an appointment for a routine review of your medication unless you are asked to do so (or you are experiencing problems with your medications)

Our preferred service for ordering your medication is via SystmOne Online service, AirMid App, NHS App. 

To sign up to this service please come into the practice with photo identification so we can register you for this service.

You can also submit a request for medication here Order medication (no login/app required)

You can continue to use the paper slip and drop this into our letterbox in the entrance foyer.

We would encourage patients to use the online service where possible as this process is far more efficient for the team to process and more convenient for patients.

If you have to pay for your prescriptions and get more than 4 items in 3 months, or 14 in 12 months, you could save money by buying a pre-payment certificate.

If you pay for NHS prescribed HRT medicine 3 or more times in 12 months, a HRT PPC could save you money.

Each item on an NHS prescription usually costs £9.90.  You can buy a HRT PPC for a one-off payment of £19.80 (the cost of two single items).  The HRT PPC covers an unlimited number of certain HRT medicines for 12 months, regardless of why they are prescribed.

Please contact the Prescription Pricing Authority for further information on 0845 850 0030.  If you wish to purchase a pre-payment certificate over the phone, please give your debit or credit card available.  Alternatively, you can visit Sign up for a Pre-Payment Certificate.

When taking medicines abroad, your doctor can only prescribe a limited amount of any drug.  If you are going away for more than 3 months, you will need to make sure you can get any medicines you need in the country you are going to.  Requests for more than 3 months supply will not be accepted.