AIBU to request prescription sent to different city?

[Grooticle]

Can’t get through to my GP so hoping the hive mind knows....

I’m currently not in my home city, and with national lockdown looming I want to stay put.

I need a repeat prescription - can I just ask my GP to issue the prescription to a pharmacy in my current area, or would that cause issues? I don’t know how funding works or if it has to be filled in the same nhs trust area?

Thanks in advance :)

I have done exactly this for months now and it has worked fine.

Have you asked your GP or reception staff to advise you on this? I think they are the best ones to answer your question.

You can have a prescription filled at any pharmacy. So your GP ought to be able to do that.

(With the caveat that I'm not sure if you can go between countries of the UK, for example a prescription issued by a doctor in Scotland to a pharmacy in England.)

We do it all the time at the surgery where I work. You just need to have the receptionist change your EPS preference then all future prescriptions will go to that one.

Just remember to change it back when you come home or they will keep going there.

My Nan went from Essex to Wales to stay with my Auntie after the first lockdown, she got it changed and it was absolutely fine. They even delivered it to my aunties for her

Yes. Just check with the pharmacy you wish to use first, before contacting your practice. (Some can be a bit funny about it.)

Ah great, thanks all! The receptionists at my GP aren’t answering their phones, but I will trust the hive mind and go ahead on this basis :)

Yep, prescriptions can be sent electronically to any pharmacy in England, not Wales or Scotland though as different health authority. Just make sure you have a postcode of a local pharmacy to where you are staying to give your surgery and your destination can be changed immediately. Just remember to
let your surgery know when you are back so your nomination can be changed back to a local to your home pharmacy

Pharmacist here, yep no problem. If it’s already gone to her regular pharmacy just phone them up and say ‘can you return the prescription to the spine’. Then contact the pharmacy you want to get it from, tell them the situation and they can get it. Please give them her NHS number it makes it much easier for us! If you don’t know ask her regular pharmacy as they’ll have it on record or it will be on the top of her repeat slips.

Ah great thank you, I have my NHS number so will give them that.

I was worried I was going to have to do a ridiculous tier 4 to tier 4 trip by public transport for my drugs, so relieved the world is more sensible than that!

Yes you can. Lots of students are having to do this atm. My sisters got sent to where she goes to uni and they had to change it and send it out again to our hone town.

Home

Some GPs would ask you to register as a temporary resident for medical care and prescriptions with a local GP.

You can do Scotland to England (I'm a student who's doing it). I send an SAE and they post the signed repeat to me, and I take it to my local pharmacy. I do have to pay though, sadly the "free prescriptions" doesn't travel cross-border with it!

Forgot to add, you can only do that if your signed up to electronic prescriptions but if you get repeats I’m sure you already are. 🙂