To all Community Pharmacies dispensing
prescriptions issued by South Manchester
CCG GP Practices
Medicines Management Team
2nd Floor Parkway 3
Princess Rd
Manchester
M14 7LU
January 2014
Dear Colleague
Re: Pharmacy Repeat Prescription Ordering Schemes
South Manchester Clinical Commissioning Group (SMCCG) has requested that
practices liaise with community pharmacy contractors to help address the issue of waste
medicines in the NHS.
Medicines Management is a key and important part of patient care. If medicines are
ordered unnecessarily this is not only costly to the NHS, but most importantly, it can be
unsafe to patients and others. Patients may dispose of medicines inappropriately or they
may be available for others to use.
SMCCG has historically received numerous complaints about these schemes, including
instances where pharmacies have ordered repeat medication for
 deceased patients
 patients who are in hospital
 patients who have been discharged from hospital on new medication regimes but
their pharmacy has ordered discontinued medicines
 patients whose medication has recently been changed by their GP but their
pharmacy has ordered discontinued medicines
 patients who already have sufficient supplies of medication and have already
informed the pharmacist
South Manchester CCG believes that wherever possible patients should be encouraged
to take responsibility for the ordering of their own repeat prescriptions.
South Manchester practices are at liberty to refuse to accept pharmacy requests for
repeat medication unless there are exceptional circumstances e.g. the patient or their
carer is unable to order their own medicines. SMCCG is aware that if a practice chooses
to withdraw this facility, this needs to be done for all contractors regardless of the
ordering system used. Failure to do so could be seen as prescription direction which is
against NHS regulations.
However, South Manchester practices may choose to accept orders for medication on
patients’ behalf but will only do so if the following process is adhered to:

The pharmacy must only submit requests using the right hand side of
prescription.

The pharmacy must ask the patient/carer which individual medicines are
required and clearly specify only those that are needed.

‘When required’ items can be clearly added on by the pharmacy but will be
provided at the discretion of the GP.

The pharmacy must stamp, sign and date the request form indicating when
they contacted the patient/ carer to confirm which drugs are needed.

The practice will not accept requests if patients have not been contacted within
the previous 7 working days.

The pharmacy must provide a contact number/name in case of queries.

The pharmacy to establish a mechanism to inform practices if an item/s has not
been issued to a patient. The practice can then amend their clinical records.
Practices reserve the right to refuse any requests that do not follow the above protocol.
On the odd occasion where it has not been possible to contact a patient/carer, the
pharmacy must clearly state this. The practice will then review the individual prescription
request and decide if it is appropriate.
If prescriptions are falsely stamped to indicate that patients/carers have been contacted
and this is not the case, and the patient does not require the medication, this could be
considered as fraudulent.
This process will be implemented fully across all 25 South Manchester practices from
February 2014 in conjunction with a local waste medicines campaign. We appreciate
your support in helping to minimise waste medicines and maximise our limited NHS
resources.
Yours sincerely
Dr Bill Tamkin
Chair
Dr Helen Burgess
Clinical Lead for
Medicines Optimisation
South Manchester Clinical Commissioning Group
Medicines Management Team 0161 765 6223/2
Letter adapted from Bury CCG
Aneet Kapoor
Chair Manchester
LPC