PRESCRIPTIONS

St Mary’s Island Group Practices offers an internet based service which allows patient to request prescription medicines and to book their GP appointments on-line. You will need to register. See details about registration.

We ask that you.....

• Don’t run out of your medicines – please allow at least 3 working days when ordering your repeat prescription.
• Don’t hoard medicines at home – if you have unused medicines please take them to your pharmacy for safe disposal.
• Please order only the items that you require – you don’t need to order every item on your repeat list every time. This will help to reduce wastage.
• If there are items on your repeat slip that you are no longer taking – please tell the practice so that they can be taken off.
• If you are unsure how to take any of your medicines please ask your GP or pharmacist.
• Remember to check your repeat prescription slip to see if you need to make a Medication Review appointment.

What is considered 'urgent'?

Repeat medication requests will be processed in 3 working days.

The practice receives a large number of urgent medication requests for items which are not clinically urgent. Urgent requests are those needed to prevent you from becoming seriously ill and not those which have been ordered late. It is your responsibility to ensure that your prescription request is ordered in plenty of time. Many medications can be safely missed for a few days and in order to optimise access to the clinical team, the practice has a policy for urgent requests.

Urgent medications include:

Insulin, medications for treating epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and asthma. Adrenaline injector pens, palliative care medications, anticoagulants, long term steroids, antipsychotics, and medicines to prevent transplanted organ rejection. 

Medicines outside of this list are not considered clinically urgent and we ask that you allow 3 working days for completion. This decision has been made by the doctors and the reception staff are not able to amend this. Please respect them.
If you feel you still require a prescription the same day it will be passed to the emergency doctor on call. The doctor will be dealing with urgent patient care and prioritises their work. You will normally therefore need to return later in the day to collect the prescription and, if safe to provide, it will be be available by 6pm that day. For safety reasons they may only be able to issue a reduced quantity.

Urgent requests are monitored and recorded in your medical record in order to help us assist you to manage your medication better. Repeat offenders will be pulled up on their non compliance with this policy.