BRADFORD & AIREDALE CCG TRUST

ashcroft surgery,
bradford

Newlands Way, Eccleshill, Bradford, BD10 0JE, West Yorkshire, UK

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Pharmacies will shortly no longer be able to order your prescription

Are you on medication that you regularly take every month?

  • Does the pharmacist  order it for you?
  • Does the pharmacist then pick it up and deliver it to you?

If the answer is yes, please read this page carefully.

So what’s happening?

Before the start of 2017, pharmacies will no long be able to order you prescription for you.

However, DO NOT PANIC.   The ruling is that they simply cannot place the order – only you, a relative can.

Once you have placed the order for what you need with us, the pharmacist can still pick up the prescription from us and deliver it to you.

So, the only thing that is changing is that they can no longer place the order – but they can still deliver it to you.

Why is this happening?

We are not here to make your life difficult – that is for sure.   This is a ruling that is being applied across the whole of the UK and so we have no choice but to comply.    Actually, to be honest, we think it is a good ruling.    One of the biggest problems in the UK is that pharmacies will often order everything on your repeat prescription without properly checking what you need and don’t need.  You have probably experienced this – for instance, some months you may notice that you are building a stock of a certain medication even though you might have said to the pharmacist that you do not need it.    This is wasteful in terms of NHS money.

And talking about NHS money – there isn’t much of it to spend willy nilly.  As you know the NHS is under enormous financial pressure due to ever increasing demand for services and rising costs.  This means that we need to spend this money wisely and not be wasteful.  Ultimately, NHS funds come from the taxes of the hard-working public!

Doctors doing home visits to patients often find masses of medications in the drawers and cupboards because some pharmacists are over ordering medication.  This is clearly a waste of NHS money and we need to stop it.

So how does me as the patient ordering it helps the situation?

It’s quite simple really.   If you place an order with us for exactly what you need, there will be little wastage.   And of course, you are the best person who really knows what it is you exactly require and what it is that you don’t.

Does this mean I have to physically come in and put in a repeat prescription order?

For some of you it does mean that.     It is what used to happen only a few years ago.

However, there  are other things you can do….

  • You can post us your repeat prescription order.
  • You can ask a neighbour or friend to hand it over to us.
  • And of course, you can get a trusted relative to manage your repeat prescription order.

There is one other exciting way you can easily manage your repeat prescription order which saves you from coming into the surgery: and that is, our Electronic Prescription Service.   Read more about it below.

Our Electronic Prescription Service

Our Electronic Prescription Service is an easy way for you to order medication that you regularly use and are on your repeat prescription list without you having to come down to the surgery.   You simply log into our system from your computer and select what you want and then hit the ‘send’ button.  It really is as simple as that.   If you find computers difficult, you may wish to consider allowing a trusted relative to do this for you – but that choice is really yours and you need to think about what other medical information they may be able to see when they log in.  To use our Electronic Prescription Service, you have to register for it.   Why not talk to Ashcroft’s in-house pharmacy advisors about it (Sadia or Shoaib).

 

I’m a bit worried about all of this.

If you are still worried about this, or you feel your personal situation makes this new system for difficult for you, please contact the surgery and ask to speak to Ashcroft’s own in-house pharmacy advisors (Sadia or Shoaib).

  • Tel 01274 612 279

However, we hope you can see how this move will save money for the NHS – which remember, is YOUR NHS.

How to order your repeat prescription

It’s very simple.  Just click on this link to learn how to order your repeat prescription now.


Please note: This new system still allows pharmacies to collect and deliver your prescription.   They still can!  🙂


Another interesting thing…

Why do the same medicines sometimes have different names?

Many medicines have at least two different names – a brand name and a generic name.  The brand name is usually what the medicine is called by the company that first discovered and developed it. The generic name is the name of the active ingredient in the medicine that makes it work.

Initially, for a few years the company that developed the medicine is the only one that can sell it, which means they can choose the price.  To make a profit from the very costly development process, this usually means the medicine is very expensive at this point.Generic copies are allowed to be made once this period ends. Generic medicines are usually as effective as the brand-name medicine because they contain the same active ingredients.Generic medicines are used more often for treatment because they are as effective as the original medicine, but cost far less.

Read more about generic and brand-name medicines.

4 thoughts on “Pharmacies will shortly no longer be able to order your prescription”

  1. This is not helpful to patients, so I now have to contact the surgery and request a repeat prescription, the medication I will then receive will be exactly the same medication that my pharmacist ordered. I have never received more medication than prescribed from the Doctor. I see this as a move in the wrong direction as patients could forget to re order and go without the vital medication required. This is probably a financial decision rather than a genuine patient care decision. I strongly feel the NHS needs to re consider this decision.

    1. Dear K Connell,
      Ashcroft Surgery would totally agree with you when you say that this is a financial decision rather than a genuine patient care decision. The thing is, the decision comes from high above, and not individual surgeries. All surgeries across Bradford are being asked to conform. In fairness to Bradford CCG (who made the decision), they never once said it was a patient care decision (where did you read that?). They’ve been very open and upfront about this being a financial decision.

      By the way, you say you will now have to contact the surgery and request a repeat prescription – why not try the easier method and just order things online. If you have a home computer, this is a very easy thing to do. You clearly know how to submit an online post and I am sure logging into our system online and placing your order for medication will be a breeze for you.

      Coming back to the issue of the pharmacists not ordering your prescriptions – whilst we can totally appreciate that some patients may find this an inconvenience, we would urge you to consider the greater good it will do the nation. Remember, the NHS is funded by public money from the taxes of hard working people. Therefore, we have to be very wise in the way we use that money and not waste it unnecessarily – would you agree?.

      You say that you never receive any medication other than what the doctor prescribed and we are genuinely pleased to hear that. However, we would also urge you to remember that there are loads of other patients who are actually getting medication surplus to requirement despite them telling the pharmacies that they don’t require it ‘this month’. You won’t be aware of this because you don’t encounter the numerous patients we do who ask us why they keep getting medication that they have plentiful stock of. This is simply wasteful and the we need to get control of the situation. And patient’s are being asked to place the order because they are truly the only ones who know what they need this month and what they don’t.

      So whilst we apologise for the individual inconvenience that this may cause, we would urge you to think of this as a move to try and protect money in the NHS from being unnecessarily wasted. We would also urge you to think of the many patients who do call us and tell us how many drawfuls of medication they have. Pharmacies are meant to ask patients what medication they actually required before they deliver. Many pharmacies are very good and they actually do this. However, there are many pharmacies that simply don’t and deliver nearly everything on a repeat prescription list, whether or not there are items not needed that particular month.

      I hope you and others find this reply helpful. We need to protect YOUR NHS, otherwise, you’ll lose it and we will end up with a privatised system where placing an online order will be the least of your worries.

  2. gloria sherborne

    Will the pharmacy be delivering my medication during this corona virus scare.
    I do not go out and my doctor orders my medication from the pharmacy.
    I am scared if they don’t deliver it—I am 78 and housebound.
    They are not answering their telephone for me to reach them?

    1. If you are housebound, and you normally have a pharmacist who delivers it for you, then they will deliver it in the same way as before.

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