Escrick Surgery

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Urgent Information About Repeat Prescription Ordering

August 15, 2019

As you may know, the Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) is introducing changes to how repeat prescriptions are ordered. Pharmacies will be unable to automatically order prescriptions on behalf of patients and patients are being advised to order direct through the GP via various methods:

• Order online via the GP surgery website

• Download and order via the NHS App

• Tick the items you need on the white, tear-off slip and give to the surgery

• Post the repeat prescription to your GP practice

This change would significantly increase the amount of time our reception staff are on the phone taking repeat prescription requests. At present our reception staff spend approximately 30% of their time on the phone taking medication requests. Taking medication orders over the phone comes with the inherent risk of the wrong medication being requested due to drugs having similar names. This has happened recently within the practice with the error being corrected before the medication was prescribed.

Due to this change from the CCG, its implications on the practice and our focus on patient safety we have taken the decision to follow other practices nationwide and stop taking prescriptions requests over the telephone from September 2019. We hope by making this change it will free up our phones lines for patients contacting us for other queries and also allow our receptionists to process accurate repeat prescription requests more efficiently.

We understand that this might not be popular with some patients. We do hope that you will understand this change will allow us to continue to be a safe and efficient practice.

Please pick up a leaflet in the waiting room to find out more information why the local CCG are introducing this new approach to ordering repeat prescriptions.

 If you would like to register for on-line ordering, please fill in the form at the surgery and bring one form of identification. You will then be able to order your medication at any time of day or night.

We do understand that a number of patients will not be able to order their medication through one of the above methods. These patients may be those who have or are:

• Elderly housebound

• Palliative Care

• Mental Health Issues

• Learning Disabilities

• Hearing or visual disabilities

• No access to family or carers to support them

• No access to internet and have mobility issues in terms of attending the    GP practice to drop off repeat slip

If you feel that you or one of your relatives are one of these patients could you identify yourself to the surgery. The surgery and local pharmacies will also be identifying patients who may have additional needs.

Statement of Intent

September 30, 2014

STATEMENT OF INTENT FOR ESCRICK SURGERY

New contractual requirements came into force from 1 April 2014 requiring that GP Practices should make available a “statement of intent” in relation to the following IT developments:

  • Summary Care Record (SCR)
  • GP to GP Record Transfers (GP2GP)
  • Patient Online Access to their GP medical record

The same contractual obligations require that we have a “statement of intent” regarding these developments in place and publicised by 30th September 2014.

Please find below details of the practice’s stance with regards to these points:-

Summary Care Record (SCR)

NHS England require practices to enable successful automated uploads of any changes to patient’s summary information, at least on a daily basis, to the summary care record (SCR) or have published plans in place to achieve this by 31st March 2015.

Having your Summary Care Record (SCR) available will help anyone treating you without your full medical record. They will have access to information about any medication you may be taking and any drugs that you have a recorded allergy or sensitivity to. Of course if you do not want your medical records to be available in this way then you will need to let us know so that we can update your record.

Escrick Surgery confirm that your SCR is automatically updated on at least a daily basis to ensure that your information is as up to date as it can possibly be.

GP to GP Record Transfers

NHS England requires practices to utilise the GP2GP facility for the transfer of patient records between practices, when a patient registers or de-registers (this does not apply to temporary patient registrations).

It is very important that you are registered with a doctor at all times. If you leave your previous practice and register with a new GP, your medical records will be removed from your previous doctor and forwarded on to your new GP via NHS England. It can take up to 2 weeks for your paper records to reach your new surgery. However, GP2GP record transfers your electronic medical record to your new practice much sooner.

Escrick Surgery confirm that GP2GP transfers are already active, and we send and receive patient records via this system.

Patient Online Access to Their GP Record

NHS England require practices to promote and offer the facility to enable patients online access to appointments, prescriptions, allergies, adverse reactions and coded information or have published plans in place to achieve this by 31st March 2016.

Escrick Surgery currently offer the facility for booking and cancelling appointments and also for ordering your repeat prescriptions on-line and access to your Summary Care Record which includes allergies and adverse reactions along with any medication you have been prescribed recently. This is done by the clinical system on-line facility.  In addition you can now request access to coded information.  If you do not already have a user name and password for this – please register for on-line access at the surgery. Anyone wanting to add medical record on-line access to their registration please bring photo id.