Extended Prescribing Scheme
In October 2020, the Practice started a trial where patients were offered to sign up to a scheme called Extended Prescribing. This scheme essentially allows patients to order all their regular repeat prescriptions twice per year as opposed to every month or every 2 months. It also ensures that patients will receive their medications in a timely fashion (every 4 weeks or every 8 weeks depending on the quantities of each medication per prescription).
Once using this service, patients will receive a text message (or email if we do not have a record of a mobile phone number) providing dates of when the prescriptions will be sent to their nominate chemist and by which fate to re-order the medication for the next 6 month period. This scheme helps ensure that certain medications are not overprescribed.
The extended prescribing scheme will not apply to everyone, and the introduction of this service is at the discretion of the Practice and will be case-by-case depending on the nature of the repeat medication involved. You will be contacted and offered this service if considered appropriate.
In order to receive the dates for when the prescriptions will be sent to your nominated Pharmacy, please ensure that we have your correct mobile phone number (or e-mail address)
Ordering Medication on the Extended Prescribing Scheme
If you are ordering your medication and have already been set up on an 'Extended Prescribing' scheme, then please be mindful of when you need to re-order the next cycle of medication. As mentioned above, you will receive a text message/e-mail when the medication has been issued via this scheme confirming the dates of when the prescriptions will be sent to your nominated Pharmacy. The text message will include a 're-order' date (see below). This is date by which you need to request your next cycle of medication. If you order too early, the request will be rejected and you will have to re-submit the request nearer the re-order date.
The date of when the prescription is next due to be issued is also available on Patient Access. Please remember that the 're-order' date you receive on the text message/email is specifically set 48 hours before the 'Next issue' date (see below) and is for your benefit and to act as a reminder so that you do not run out of medication for when it is next due.
The 'Last issued' date confirms when the medication has been already scheduled to be issued by the Practice. Therefore you do not need to order your medication until you have actually collected the medication from this date (Please refer to the images above confirming the 'Last issued' and 'Last Prescription' dates).
If you do not see a 'Next Issue' date for a particular medication (as shown for Metformin as an example above), then these items are not automatically sent to the Pharmacy on the dates shown in the text message and will need to ordered when required. However, please be advised that when ordering such medication they should still not be ordered too early or they will be post-dated or rejected.