Referrals During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Repeat prescriptions:

During the coronavirus pandemic our preferred method of ordering would be via e mail - priory.surgery@nhs.net. Please include the patient's name, date of birth, first line of address, medications required and please nominate a pharmacy in order to send the prescription electronically.

Alternatively, you can visit a local Pharmacy and sign up for them to request your medications.

If you are signed up for online services you can still order your repeat medications through the App.

Please note we can only take requests over the telephone if you have no access to any of the above.

Please allow 72hrs before collection, preferably after morning surgery.  This is to maximise your safety by having your regular doctor review the prescription.  If you collect your prescription from a pharmacy, please allow one extra day.

Prescriptions can now be sent electronically to the pharmacy of your choice and you can collect your medication direct from them, rather than picking up the paper prescription first.  Please ask a receptionist to update your records if you would like to use this service, or talk to your pharmacist (who can also sign you up).

Remember also that some pharmacies offer a delivery and collection service, which you may find helpful.  Please speak to your chosen pharmacy to ask about their services.

An increasing number of patients are submitting “urgent” requests that they expect to be ready within just a few hours. Most of these requests are for routine, regular medications that should really have been ordered earlier.  The doctors are extremely busy in surgeries and with home visits and are not always available to sign prescriptions at such short notice.

We would like your help to reduce the number of “urgent” requests by asking you to make sure you order your medication on time. Over the next few months, and in line with many other surgeries, we will be introducing a new policy for urgent requests:

• Doctors will agree a restricted list of medications that can be issued as urgent requests.
• If the medication you require is not on this list, you will not be given an urgent prescription and your request will be processed within the usual timeframe of 72 working hours.
• Urgent requests for medications that are on the approved list will be issued as paper prescriptions, which will need to be collected from the surgery after 6pm on the day of the request. We will not be able to send urgent requests electronically.

 Please keep an eye out for further information about this on the surgery noticeboards and the website in the near future.