Dispensary

The dispensary is opening hours are:
MONDAY 08:30 – 12:30 and 13:30 – 18:30
TUESDAY 08:30 – 12:30 and 13:30 – 18:30
WEDNESDAY 08:30 – 12:30 and 13:30 – 18:30
THURSDAY 08:30 – 13:00
FRIDAY 08:30 – 12:30 and 13:30 – 18:30
(except bank holidays).
Notices of closure dates for staff training are displayed on the entrance to the surgery and on the surgery website.
The dispensing team are responsible for all repeat prescription requests and will discuss any medication queries if required.
The surgery operates a 28 day prescribing policy; if you require further information on this please enquire at the dispensary.
We require two full working days before your authorised repeat prescription is ready for collection; this includes any private prescriptions. Please remember to take weekends and bank holidays into account.
Requests received after 17:30 will increase the processing period by another 24 hours.
Repeat Prescription Requests
In the interest of safety we are unable to receive repeat medication requests over the telephone or through the triage telephone phone system.
Your prescription will come with a computerised tear-off section listing medicines the GP has authorised as a repeat. (Please see below for medication prescribed from this surgery but not authorised as a repeat).
To obtain a repeat prescription (this includes any medication that you have previously been prescribed but that may not have been added to your repeat):

• Firstly, please ensure you are not due for a medication review with the doctor or nurse before making your request (notice of reviews required will be printed on the repeat side of your prescription sheet; this will be highlighted to you at the point of prescription collection). Patients on repeat medication will be asked to see a doctor, nurse practitioner or clinical pharmacist at least once a year to review these regular medications. Please ensure that, when requested, you book an appropriate appointment to avoid unnecessary delays to further prescriptions.

• Send us your repeat request by mail, fax: (01673 844388) or by posting your request in the external surgery postbox or the designated repeat box located inside the surgery. You can also request medication via the online ordering system (please request information for this service from reception or dispensary) and by posting the request in the repeat box at Boots the Chemist, Market Rasen.

• If your repeat slip (counterfoil) has been misplaced or is not available, please write your name, date of birth and your request on a sheet of paper and post as above. (Repeat prescription request forms are also available at the reception and dispensary). Some hand written requests may take longer to process, especially if the written information is not clear or does not match the computer entry. Please be aware that some medications are not available on repeat prescription.
Please remember: only ask for what you need
Every year, medicines waste costs the NHS millions of pounds. This is money that could be used to fund vital NHS services. We all have a responsibility to use medicines responsibly.
To help with this please:
• Check the amount of medication you already have at home before you request more. Think carefully before ticking all the boxes on your repeat prescription form and only tick those you really need.

• If you don’t require the medicine now – don’t order it! If you need the medicine in the future you can request it then. There is no need to worry; the item will not disappear from your repeat prescription form. It will still be there next time you need to order your medication.

• Unused medicines cannot be recycled, even if they have never been opened.
Medication Reviews

On occasion you may see a note on your repeat prescription slip informing you that you are due a medication review. This is an opportunity for a GP (or in some cases our practice nurse) to check that your medication is still the best treatment for your condition and that the appropriate monitoring and health checks have been carried out. If you have been taking the same medication for many years and your condition is stable it may be possible to conduct your medication review as a telephone consultation. Please ensure that you book the appropriate appointment to avoid unnecessary delays to future prescriptions.
If you receive treatment from a specialist, the GP will still require you to attend for a medication review if your prescriptions are supplied by the surgery. The reason for this is that the prescribing GP holds clinical responsibility for the medication issued.
While repeating medication without seeing the doctor is convenient for patients, we still have to ensure you are using your medications safely. Each request is reviewed individually. Please do not assume that your request will be granted automatically. We are sorry if this causes any inconvenience.
Quit 51
Prescription requests for patients attending the Quit 51 smoking cessation programme will be available for collection 3 full working days from receipt of advisory document.
Why did the doctor not issue my prescription?
Sometimes the GP will not issue a request for a prescription and will ask you to arrange a telephone or face-to-face consultation instead. Common reasons include:
• You have requested a medication that has never been given to you before by the surgery
• You have requested your repeat prescription too soon (the GP might be concerned that you are taking your tablets too often and that they are running out early)
• You have requested an item which is not usually given as a repeat prescription (such as controlled drugs, antibiotics or steroid creams)
• You have not been seen by the GP or nurse for a while and you need to have routine monitoring and health checks before we can safely issue your prescription
• You gave us a handwritten prescription from a hospital which you were supposed to take to the hospital pharmacy

Requests for converting specialist private prescriptions to NHS prescriptions
In the interest of patient safety, please note that a private prescription cannot simply be converted to a NHS prescription. GPs take full legal and clinical responsibility for all prescriptions they sign. The GP must therefore make an assessment ensuring sufficient information has been given to accept this responsibility as the patient has been clinically diagnosed by another specialist healthcare professional. Before a NHS prescription can be issued, the GP must have received a letter from the private consultant explaining the precise details of the prescription; what it is being used to treat; how long the treatment is intended for; and what monitoring or follow up is required.
Please allow 5 full working days for this process.
We therefore advise patients that:
A private prescription request will be considered by a GP – It will not be issued automatically and patients may be requested to make a face to face or telephone appointment with a GP. In this case, patients will be contacted.
If the GP is unable to issue a NHS prescription, patients can still obtain the medication by paying for it privately with the prescription issued by the specialist at any community pharmacy.

The GP may refuse to issue you with an NHS prescription for the following reasons:
• If the GP considers that there is a not a clear clinical indication for the prescription, and that in the same circumstances an NHS patient would not be being offered this treatment.
• If the private specialist recommends a new or experimental treatment, or recommends prescribing a medication outside of its licensed indication.
• If the medication recommended is not generally provided within the NHS.
• If the medication is of a specialised nature requiring on-going monitoring, some GPs may feel that they have insufficient information to accept responsibility for the prescription.
Hospital Outpatient Letters
Hospital Outpatient requests are non-urgent and this should be clearly stated on the reverse of the hospital form. As above, a prescription will not be issued automatically and patients may be requested to make a face to face or telephone appointment with a GP. In this case, you will be contacted. Please allow 7 full working days for this process as the GP may be required to discuss the request with the hospital specialist team.
Hospital Prescriptions
You should not bring us prescriptions issued by hospital outpatient clinics. It is often not possible for us to issue these prescriptions without the accompanying clinic letter which the hospital may not send to us until a few weeks after your appointment. Please take these prescriptions to the hospital pharmacy, as you should have been advised at your appointment.

Emergency requests for medication
Requests for medication to be issued on the same day (emergency prescriptions) put a strain on our GPs and Dispensers, therefore we would encourage patients to order their medication before their supply runs out. There are a number of convenient ways to order your medication. Please visit our website for further information, or speak to our dispensary team for advice.

We understand that occasionally it is necessary to request medication urgently and at short notice. We would be grateful if you could inform the dispensary, explaining the reason your medication is required urgently to ensure it can be assessed by a GP and then dealt with by a dispenser.

Any EMERGENCY PRESCRIPTIONS should be available for collection after 16:00 the same day. Please only use this service in an emergency but be aware that it is not always possible to issue an emergency supply of medication at short notice.
The GP may decide that the medication requested is not of an urgent nature, in which case your prescription will be ready for collection in the usual two full working days.

The Duty GP may only issue a 7 day supply of the requested medication as an emergency.

Shared Care Protocol

We prescribe certain medications on what is known as a “shared-care protocol” (examples include Methotrexate, Melatonin and Azathioprine).
This means that the patient remains under the care of the hospital specialist but the prescription is issued by the GP. The initiating hospital specialist is responsible for ensuring that patients receive relevant counselling, including warnings, potential side effects and interactions prior to initiating treatment.
All baseline checks will be done by the specialist prior to requesting shared care from the GP.
Continued monitoring e.g. blood tests and ECGs remain the responsibility of the initiating hospital specialist.
A management plan for the duration of treatment will be created by the hospital specialist at the point of initiation.
Once stabilisation has been achieved the hospital specialist will then ask the GP to take on the prescribing of the medication. Once this has been agreed all future prescriptions will be issued from the surgery.
Some drugs issued under shared-care require regular monitoring of blood tests to ensure their safety. If the patient is having their blood test monitoring done at the hospital, the GPs at Market Rasen Surgery reserve the right not to issue the prescription until they have up to date copies of the blood test results. It is the patient’s responsibility to ensure that we are receiving copies of their blood results.

Prescribing medication
The GPs at Market Rasen Surgery believe that providing the best possible care to our patients is our top priority. When a prescription is necessary our main considerations are effectiveness and safety. We would never let cost come before patient care but at the same time we try to provide the best value to the NHS by prescribing from an approved list of medications which meet these considerations.
This list is known as a formulary and we are sometimes asked by a hospital doctor to prescribe medications which are either restricted to the local hospital formulary or are not on either the local hospital or GP formulary. It is not always possible to prescribe these medications but when these situations arise, we will seek advice from the Lincolnshire Medicines Management Team in order to find a solution for our patients.

Medication supplies when travelling abroad
Market Rasen Surgery follows the NHS rules on the provision of medications when travelling abroad. The NHS allows a maximum of 3 months of medication to cover whilst travelling out of the country. Unfortunately we cannot exceed this and patients will need to make arrangements whilst abroad for repeat prescriptions if out of the country for longer than 3 months. There are situations where it may not be safe to provide as long as 3 months of a particular medication if its effects need to be monitored closely. For further information see the website NHS choices.