The National Health Service (NHS) dispenses approximately 2.7 million medicines per day. This estimates to around 20 items per person per year. Around 43% of men and 50% of women take one or more medicines regularly to treat their chronic condition. And about 45% of all medicines are prescribed to elderly.
The cost of medicines in England is approximately £10 billion per year, or around 8% of the NHS budget. In a medical survey, it has been found that 50% of patients admit that they are not taking their medicine as advised.
The medicines prescribed are more likely to be effective if you tend to follow your GP practice’s exact directions. Not taking medicines regularly to treat your chronic condition can increase the risk of medical complications that need hospitalisation and poor prognosis.
Repeat prescribing is the conventional method of GP prescribing. It includes prescribing medicines that are regularly needed to a patient with chronic conditions. It can be renowned by the doctor without the need for a patient to be present physically.
How you can order prescription?
- Through a GP surgery – using a paper prescription
- Online request
Ordering prescription through a GP surgery is the most commonly used method, which can be done by using the right hand side of the medical script.
If you are techno-savvy, you may find ordering NHS online prescription quite helpful. You need to nominate a pharmacy to order NHS online prescription. The service is connected to the clinical system, which means any medicine that has been prescribed by your GP will be mentioned in a list similar to that on the right side of your repeat prescription.
This service is called the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) in most general practices. It is reliable, secure and confidential. If you want to pick up your repeat prescription, you will not have to visit your GP surgery. With the EPS, you can order NHS online prescription by allowing your GP to send prescription electronically to the pharmacy you choose, saving you time and money.
The prescription here is an electronic message sent by your GP so there is no paper prescription to lose. If you nominate an online pharmacy such as Pharmacy Outlet, you need not requiring waiting in the store to collect your medicine, instead you will receive it directly to your preferred address.
