NHS repeat prescriptions??

[apbremer]

Since my surgery will not permit prescription renewal by phone any more (safety reasons??) I have just spent the last 30 mins trying to do so on line. Absolute shambles. Just going around in circles. Has any sane person managed to solve it??

[Peckhampam]

Enquire whether your surgery subscribes to patientaccess.com which manages repeat prescriptions very well. Or sign up with the chemist you use.

[siousxiesue]

Which surgery are you with? I'd strongly recommend complaining to the regulator.

apbremer Wrote:

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> Since my surgery will not permit prescription

> renewal by phone any more (safety reasons??) I

> have just spent the last 30 mins trying to do so

> on line. Absolute shambles. Just going around in

> circles. Has any sane person managed to solve it??

[jazzer]

See https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/prescriptions-and-pharmacies/electronic-prescriptions/

This way you deal with the pharmacy and not the GP practice.

[Guest]

Perhaps it's not a matter of sanity but just browser and computer settings and authentication procedures alongside backlogs of administrative work at your GP practice due to the Covid-19 situation.

Everything starts with your surgery giving you an Identification code as a registered patient of theirs with a NHS number, but if you have not been registered yet it is very unlikely that they are going to do this during this pandemic crisis!

The same may be true if you start from the Patientaccess.com end: the website if I remember right allows you to register without an ID provided by a GP practice but that is likely to end in nothing in this period because your GP would not follow up.

If you already have an ID and the password does not work and you cannot reckon what to do next contact the technical support and follow their instructions.

You need to have time stamp on your computer synchronised with a remote server: any Microsoft or Apple computer does this automatically these days, unless you have intentionally disallowed such communications in the background or if you have malware and viruses on your computer interfering with the internal clock for malicious purposes, or you are pretending to be in the UK whereas you are abroad etc etc - I skip other nasty and fraudulent reasons I am sure do not apply to your unfortunate case.

You also need to make sure the totality of cookies on your browser are allowed - at least for now.

The service is likely to review such requirement because cookies will be deprecated and not working anyhow in the next future but, for the time being, if you want the service to work you have to allow cookies in your browser.

Best of luck - and if desperate keep on calling the GP or the pharmacist.

[apbremer]

Gave up and went to see the surgery. All done in seconds. Life is too short to bugger around with half baked and unintelligible websites.

[Pugwash]

Since the start of Covid last year the arrangement my surgery has is that I just take a copy of my prescription to my pharmacy (Sadlers LL) and they will issue medication. My GP normally emails my prescription over to the pharmacy so they have a record. Recently there was a suggestion that I notify the pharmacy around the 22nd of the month that I need medication, give it a few days then collect.

From what I gather most GPs are doing the same thing. Different if you have frequent changes of medication.

[Guest]

ah ah apbremer you are so right - but when the website and its procedures work that is an enormous help for everybody... you save your time and the time of anybody else, just send your order in 30 sec and then go and collect at the designated pharmacy... I started using the system in 2018 for myself... perhaps they were still in a trial stage at the time but everything seemed quite easy

then I also had awful problems last year, after the first lockdown, and the same happened to a client of mine, possibly because the system was upgraded and strengthened to support a growing demand of remote services - that is why I had to find the time for troubleshooting the issue and eventually discovered the tricky bits mentioned earlier

anyhow, well done to any initiative to prevent running out of medications on repeat prescriptions as some are truly life saving or indispensable to prevent health complications and that is the important thing, not staying hours in front of a computer screen!

[Sue]

I get my repeat prescriptions from Echo.

It is quick and easy.

When I registered, I just had to input all the medication and say when I was due to run out of each one (I said the week before, to be on the safe side, but in practice that wasn't necessary).

Echo email me when one is due, I confirm it, they send the request to my GP and I get it by post a day or so later.

I've had no problem at all getting them, so I presume Royal Mail prioritises the packets.

There are other similar systems. This one is linked to Lloyds pharmacies. My friend who was kindly collecting my prescriptions from Lloyds in North Cross Road saw an ad in there for Echo and told me about it.

It saves all sorts of inconvenience, and I'd only have to speak to the GP if for some reason I needed to change the medication.

ETA: It's completely free.

[Bic Basher]

I'm a carer for my mother and she'd have to call the surgery for a repeat prescription of a controlled drug, but now it's all done online using electronic prescriptions.

There was one time down Lloyds where they had to call the surgery to confirm a prescription, but since they stopped issuing the green prescription scripts, it's a lot less hassle.