Work with pharmacists for better repeat prescribing, GPs advised
General practitioners and their staff should work with local community pharmacists to improve the quality of repeat prescribing schemes, a new guide from the National Prescribing Centre says.
The guide, entitled “Saving time, helping patients — a good
practice guide to quality repeat prescribing”, says that GP practices
should be aware of which pharmacies dispense the majority of their prescriptions
and should explore the many contributions that pharmacists can make.
These include making efficient use of resources, monitoring compliance
and recording use of non-prescription or herbal medicines.
In particular, the guide says that practices need to be aware of how
many incomplete, illegible or inaccurate prescriptions are being received
by local pharmacies and how they are dealt with. They are asked to consider
whether they should have a set time during which pharmacists or their
staff can raise queries with prescribers. Processes for dealing with
dangerous drug interactions and duplicated items also need to be addressed.
The guide notes that repeat prescribing can be a demoralising chore for
prescribers and their staff if it is not properly organised. It has many
opportunities for mistakes and near misses, examples of which are given.
With repeat dispensing by pharmacists, extensions of prescribing rights
and electronic transmission of prescriptions due to be introduced in
the next few years, the guide says that robust and flexible systems need
to be introduced now to simplify later changes.
The guide has been endorsed by the Royal College of General Practitioners
and the prescribing subcommittee of the General Practitioners Committee
of the British Medical Association. Copies have been sent to GP practices
and NHS trusts in England. It can be downloaded from the NPC website
(www.npc.nhs.uk). |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal