If your GP surgery has written to you about Patient-Led Ordering, or you have been told the pharmacy can no longer order your repeat prescriptions, this guide explains what is happening and what you need to do.
Until now, many pharmacies have ordered repeat prescriptions on their patients’ behalf. You never had to think about it — the pharmacy kept track, sent the request to your surgery, and your medication appeared.
Under Patient-Led Ordering, that stops. The patient orders their own medication, when they actually need it. The pharmacy still dispenses, checks and delivers everything exactly as before. The only part that changes is who presses the button.
The honest answer is waste. When a pharmacy orders on your behalf, it has no way of knowing what is already in your kitchen cupboard. It orders everything on the repeat list, every month, because that is the safest assumption to make from the outside.
The result is medication that gets dispensed, delivered, and never taken. Once a medicine has left the pharmacy it cannot be reused — not even if the box is unopened and still sealed. It has to be destroyed. Hundreds of millions of pounds of NHS money goes that way every year.
You are the only person who can look in the cupboard and see that you already have four months of one item and none of another. That is the whole idea behind the change.
Not us. Patient-Led Ordering is introduced by GP surgeries together with the local Integrated Care Board (ICB), and it applies to every pharmacy in the area. We have no ability to opt out of it, and neither does any other pharmacy near you — so moving to a different one will not avoid the change.
Three questions, about two minutes. Tell us whether you can order through the NHS App, and whether any circumstances apply that let us keep ordering for you.
Answer the questions →Quite a lot, in fact. We still receive your prescription electronically, dispense it, have it checked by a pharmacist, and deliver it free across West Bromwich and the surrounding areas. Your MDS blister packs carry on as normal. You can still walk in and ask us anything.
The change is genuinely limited to the ordering step. It feels bigger than it is because it has always happened invisibly.
If the NHS App is the sticking point, come in. A member of our team will sit down with you and set it up on your phone — it usually takes about ten minutes, and it is worth doing once rather than struggling with it alone. Bring photo ID if you have some, as it makes the sign-up quicker.
You can also ring us on 0121 500 5756 and we will talk it through.
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