If your doctor has given you a regular prescription you can order it by giving 48 hours notice and either:

• a written note and put in the prescription box at the reception desk
• a written note by post with a stamped addressed envelope
• Arrange pick up with your preferred pharmacy (details available on request)
• By telephoning our Prescription Answering Machine on  0141 891 4404.  Please leave details of your name, address, date of birth, and the NAME of the items of medication that you require.  You can only order medication which is stated on your repeat prescription reorder form. Please note that your prescription will be ready for collection within 2 working days.
• You can also email prescriptions to the following email address:  ggc.gp52344crookstonprescriptions@nhs.scot

Please note that your prescription will normally be ready for collection within TWO working days

Under the current circumstances we will strive to deliver the prescription to the pharmacy of your choice rather than attending the surgery.

Many prescriptions are written following a clinical appointment and are issued on the basis that the treatment is either a once only curative treatment or it will require clinical review (by telephone or consultation) prior to being re-issued by our clinical staff. Therefore if your medication is not on the repeat prescription list it will not routinely be issued on your request and will require to be reviewed by our doctors or nurses. In these circumstances 48 hours prior notice is not applicable and you may be asked to speak to our staff regarding your request. In most circumstances we will require 72 hours notice and the reasons for this are outlined below in the section "Acute and Unscheduled Prescriptions".

Please note that your prescription will normally be ready in THREE working days ..........if you have not been contacted or asked to make a telephone appointment with a clinician. 

Under the current circumstances we will strive to deliver the prescription to the pharmacy of your choice rather than attending the surgery.

We would like to request that each patient indicates which pharmacy they would like their prescription to be delivered to - this will reduce the necessity to attend the Medical Centre and should also reduce patient time in having one journey to get their prescription instead of two!

Although we turn around most prescription requests within 24 hours WE STRONGLY ADVISE our patients to allow us 48 HOURS to factor in unforeseen delays. The process is now more complicated due to our recently introduced audit trail.

• Firstly the doctor or nurse may want to consider a clinical review or have a query about the reasons for a scheduled or an unscheduled prescription request.
• But secondly we now run a barcoded audit trail to ensure that we know how the prescription has been processed and tracked to prevent the prescription from going missing or from claims that it has not been received. This takes additional time!
• Prescription requests are now under audited scrutiny from Glasgow’s Medicines Management Team to ensure that prescription advice is adhered to by our patients and to avoid unnecessary waste or dangerous leakage of addictive medicines into the community. They are rightly concerned (as are we) that prescriptions are often being ordered too early and in many cases overused!
• We have a computer program to assist with this task, utilised by our reception staff and regularly checked to highlight all over ordering and alternatively poor compliance!
• When prescription requests come into the surgery (from telephone, email, letter or pharmacy) they are processed by our reception staff. If the prescriptions are not due then we refuse to do them – we normally only do them 2 or 3 days before they are due.
• If one of our patients’ orders their prescription 5 days early one month then again 5 days early the following month and continues to do this on a regular basis then it is likely they either have medication being over stocked in the house OR they are overusing the prescribed dose.
• The prescriptions have to be processed by reception staff then obviously signed by GPs – once they have been signed by the GPs they have to be sorted into various Pharmacy groups and scanned by Reception Staff.
• We process a lot of prescriptions every day and this is an onerous job for Administrative Staff as well as the Clinicians. Some pharmacies pick up daily others pick up every 2 days etc.

Thus, we have very valid reasons for adhering to a 48 hour timescale.

For prescription request not on a repeat prescription list we require 72 HOURS to process these prescriptions

In all of these cases the prescription request MUST go to a clinician for vetting and a clinical decision – this inevitably takes additional time!

Furthermore and as stated above we now have a barcoded scanning system in place.

Although this is more time consuming again it nevertheless has the major benefit of having a very accurate audit trail.

 The process:

• Once the prescription is signed by the GP the administrative team scan the prescription.
• Once the prescription is handed out to a Patient it is scanned again
• Once scanned again the scanning system holds the following information:
• the time it was scanned out
• who it was scanned out to i.e. either the patient or the patient’s representative.

In most circumstances the Prescription will go directly to the pharmacy rather than being picked up in the surgery. When the prescription is sent to the pharmacy the barcoding system gives

• the exact time it was picked up by the Pharmacy and
• which Pharmacy has picked the prescription up.

With the increasing sophistication of computer systems BUT also with the increased numbers of prescriptions processed - we have a real problem with some of the pharmacies claiming they did not get a prescription and indeed a lot of our patients also claim they do not receive their prescriptions!

Using the barcoded system we can easily see and trace the prescription and let the patients know exactly where it has gone.

Our Admin Staff can also go onto a website and type in the barcode of the prescription and it therefore enables the staff to see if the patient has presented the prescription, if it has been dispensed and what pharmacy the prescription has been presented to.

However, although implementing this system has been and continues to be quite onerous on our time, for our reception staff the system is nevertheless invaluable and in the long run enhances quality and SAVES TIME!

We do however require 72 hours to process these particular requests

Prescriptions generated by on the day consultations

Considering the benefits of the scanning system this leads onto the issue of our current situation of telephone consultations and outcomes arising from these consultations and telephone triage

For the same reasons listed above after a telephone it is crucial to understand that prescriptions arising from telephone consultations will not normally be ready until the NEXT WORKING DAY – UNLESS it is ESSENTIAL that the prescription is necessary for that day!

Even in these circumstances – it is important to understand that your prescription will be ready after 2 p.m. from a morning surgery and after 5p.m. for an afternoon