Prescribing medication is a large part of the work of a General Practice. To give you an idea of the scale of our prescribing, the NHS drugs budget allocated to the practice was just over £750,000 for the year 2005/6. With prescribing comes much responsibility. All doctors have to ensure that their prescriptions are safe as well as efficacious. To that end the Practice has evolved a variety of rules and safety checks to ensure that mistakes don't happen.

Repeat Prescriptions

Once medication has been authorised by your doctor as being available to you by repeat prescription, it may be requested:

 in person, by returning your computer sheet (if issued),
 by letter (enclosing a S.A.E.),
 or by e-mail using our online form.
48 hours notice is normally required.

Occasionally, at the Doctor’s instruction, you may be asked to make an appointment for review of your medical condition.

Acute Prescriptions

From time to time patients ask for medicines to be prescribed for them without their being seen. We call these requests for acute prescriptions. Where a problem is straightforward, such as the recurrence of a previously diagnosed, non serious and common problem (such as mild eczema), the doctors will often release a prescription without the need for a consultation.

Repeatable Prescriptions

If you require a medication that has been given before regularly for the same problem but has not yet been made a repeat prescription item you can request it:

 by talking to our receptionists
 or by e-mail using our online form which you can access by clicking here

For all other acute prescription requests it's usually best talk to our receptionists. They become very skilled at helping you with your requests. They will advise where they know the doctors will not prescribe the requested treatment without a consultation. They will often ask appropriate clinical questions, gathering information that they know the doctors will require to deal with your request properly.

Each request is then seen by one of the doctors who will make the final decision whether to prescribe or not. When a prescription request is refused the doctor will leave a message for the receptionists to ask you to make an appointment.

We would ask you to be aware that, when a doctor prescribes a medication, the doctor carries responsibility for the effects of the prescription. Therefore, the doctors will often refuse requests for prescriptions without a consultation. This applies to commonly acquired "over the counter" medicines as well as "prescription only" requests.

Nurse Prescribing

Please note that Sr Julie Daly has yet to qualify to write prescriptions for a number of treatments. It the interim she can ask one of the doctors to prescribe for you.