How long do pharmacies keep prescriptions?

[200degrees]

I was prescribed a skin cream in early august, didn’t collect it as I had a bit remaining at home. Would I still be able to collect this from the pharmacy or do I need to book another appointment with the GP for a new prescription?

I’m not sure if it’s the same across all pharmacies but the chain I work in we keep regular scripts for 6 months and Controlled Drug scripts for 30 days so I’d be checking with the pharmacy first it’s quite likely they still have it.

A prescription is valid for 6 months from issue date and CD scripts have to be collected within 28 days including the date of issue, both are legal requirements.

However your prescription that was made up at beginning of August is unlikely to still be on the shelf to collect, we don’t have endless capacity for people to collect their medication at their leisure, it’s a big problem people using us as a storage facility and we get irate at people waltzing in expecting their medication to still be on the shelf weeks later.

So you’ll need to go in, they’ll need to re-download the prescription and then dispense and check it do it probably won’t be a case of in and out.