Repeat Prescriptions Again

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JohnWhi

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Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Sorry to come back to this, but I have just received a reply from the 'Patient Services Manager' to my October 1st letter of complaint to the GP surgery about all Novorapid prescriptions being cancelled. The answer is as follows [sic]: "Unfortunately, the delay in receiving your medication, seems to have been due to the time scale of when you ordered your Novorapid Insulin. Our system has a safety net if a patient does not order their medication within a certain timeframe e.g. two months. If this is so that if a repeat medication does not get ordered within a certain frame, our system will take this medication off repeat and the system will remove it from a patients repeat medication list, this is a system safety measure.'
I sprang to the on-line ordering page and ordered insulin and testing strips that I don't need yet, but which are coming up to the two month deadline. I remain concerned that a safety measure involves cutting off a supply of medication that is essential for a Type 1 diabetic, in the present situation where it is very difficult to have contact with a doctor (I last saw a GP about seven years ago) and where the nurses dealing with the "annual review" begin the conversation by saying they know nothing of diabetes and fail to mention anything about medication. I despair of the opportunity to make the point to a person with a medical background and a knowledge of physiology. Perhaps passing it to the CCG might help?
 
That is ridiculous. There are lots of items on my repeat prescription that I don't order within 2 months and my Fiasp could certainly be one of them. needles, test strips, sharpsafe, asthma inhalers, back up Levemir penfils although I doubt I would ever need those again. I only order things when I need them. What they are doing is just encouraging stock piling which is stupid and wasteful.
 
Agree it is silly and yet another example of where everybody has to be put in one box and if they don't fit then blame it on the system rather than offer a solution. I certainly would raise it with the CCG probably via my MP.
 
Well it’s not the approach my surgery has either. My repeats list only seems to get pruned annually. I certainly don’t have to worry about needlessly reordering things every 2 months just to keep them on the list! Craziness! o_O
 
My surgery's safety net is 12 months but it is possible for them to tag some items so they are never removed.
This is important for me as I need back up insulin pen cartridges in case my pump fails but they are rarely used ... as I had to explain to my surgery's prescribing pharmacist.

Sounds to me @JohnWhi as if your surgery don't know how to use their system.
 
My items only get 'pruned' around every year if not called for. Your surgery is being really silly and you need to tell the Practice Manager that other surgeries don't do this. I have a Sharps Box on my list which I only call for about once a year. Complain to your CCG if the Practice Manager won't change the system. Also contact/join your surgery PPG Team. I'm on my surgery PPG and we meet with the Practice Manager once a month and resolve issues like this
 
Many thanks to all for the support and ideas. I am taking advice as to how to pursue this. The practice has been a disaster area since the amalgamation of seven surgeries to give a monopoly in a mainly rural area. Their errors have been widely reported in the local newspaper and patients held a public demonstration outside one of the surgeries. The doctors and nurses do their best, but they are overwhelmed and limited in what the management allow them to do. The answer would be more resources for the NHS, but that won't happen in my lifetime.
 
I only get through one box of novorapid every 2 and a half months and a box of tresiba every 3 months or so.
As a GP I would only remove an item from repeat prescriptions if not ordered for a year or so and certainly never insulin or monitoring equipment. Certain items either need to be tagged or a reminder put on that they are not to be removed even if ordered very infrequently
 
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