Prescription woes - Dr only prescribes one month at a time

[jlpartnerrs]

My surgery has said that this is the standard way that HRT is prescribed and it's driving me nuts, what can I do

I'm getting a box (30 days) of Utrogestan and a box (28 days) of Evorel 75. I can't order more than a week before the previous prescription runs out. I've been on them for five months and now I am out of sequence and I have to order the patches and then a week later the tablets, which is a right headfuck.

I'm also neurodiverse and the organisation and planning is an extra burden, along with the fact that my condition is exacerbated when I run out ...

Is there anything I can do? I've spoken to receptionists but I don't want to antagonise them, I just want to be able to decrease my mental load and anxiety.

Have you tried a postal pharmacy service? Pharmacy2u seem reliable - slightly annoying to set up but then they send you an email reminder and you click the link. They send the request to the dr, get the prescription directly and post you the medicine. No delivery charges.

Our local pharmacies are hopeless and it has changed my life!

Challenge your dr.

Don't communicate with receptionists. Go to the dr and say this one month at a time is unworkable.

You are entitled to at least 6 months at any one time.

I have this shit too. My practice isn't signed up to e prescribing either. I've just started an official complaint procedure with them.

Where would it say that we're entitled to 6 months at a time? - unless I can go in waving a bit of paper with nice/prescribing guidelines on I'll be on a hiding to nothing. I can't see the dr at the moment as they're not doing ordinary appts only emergency ones

I would also challenge that. I get three months supply at a time and it is sent via Lloyds Direct (not that the pharmacy should make a difference really).

If I go out of sync with mine and my daughters meds I call the GP.

They've issued me with extra to get the collection in sync again.

It's a 20 min car journey each time I collect meds as we are rural so I make a point of asking (insisting). I can't afford to be traipsing for long journeys and the meds are the sort you can't stop suddenly.

Luckily it's been sorted out in the past without issue.

Use Pill time or similar, they do ALL of that for you and it is such a big relief. Prescriptions turn up in a parcel. Well except for Estrogel but that's another story.

Generally ongoing prescriptions are for a months supply at a time but can be increased depending on circumstances.

However, I suspect that that may be difficult currently with the shortage of HRT medicine nationally.

I think your best bet (as pp suggested) is to register with an online pharmacy or pharmacy service who will either send you an email to remind you to order or will automatically send your prescription out.

Not HRT meds but DD's asthma medication can only be prescribed one month at a time so our GP agreed to write a 6 month prescription, then the pharmacy dispense it each month. I get a text alert from the pharmacy that it's ready to collect each month and also when it's the last of the six.

My daughter has 2 lots of medication dispensed monthly but at different times. I quickly got fed up with ringing/emailing surgery to reorder, then going to pharmacy fortnightly when directed only to be told it wasn't ready/no pharmacist etc. Switched to Lloyds Direct who have an app which records amount of medication remaining and dose, then prompts you when getting low, contacts the surgery for you to reorder then posts it to the house for free!

There is no obligation to give you 6mth. Don't go in demanding that. I suggest use a local reliable pharmacy and they will request for you each month so you don't have to remember it. It will be there waiting for you. Would not be unreasonable to ask for 3m at a time if stable on it.

There are 2 issues here. One is that mo they prescriptions are so inconvenient. The other is that you will pay 6x the charge of someone getting a 6 month prescription. Given you have 2 items, this is a different of 2 to 12 charges. Yes, a prepayment prescription card will reduce this difference, but you’re still paying far more.

I would write to the practice manager and GP. Put down the price it is costing you to have 2x prescriptions each month and also the cost it will be if they give you a 6 monthly prescription. State that guidelines recommend that after the initial 3 month review longer prescriptions are given. State that many GPs offer 6 monthly prescriptions and you would ideally like this, or as a minimum 3 monthly. State that if they want to continue with mo they you would like to know the reason and also what the complaints process is. State that anxiety is a key menopause symptom, and the fact you have to apply monthly, especially with current shortages adds to your stress. Obviously be very polite, but also firm about it.

Good luck. There are numerous other threads running about the same matter. It is a disgrace how one woman can pay £18.70 and another 6x this amount for the exact same quantity if medicines, plus avoid all the aggro of 6 trips to the pharmacy at a minimum.

Not every practice is on the electronic system so you are stuck with it .

Thanks for all the ideas. I'm going to write a letter and hope that does the trick, as there's no way of actually talking to a doctor. Fingers crossed.

There is currently a shortage of HRT medications in the uk.

Just to come back to this, my GP's response to my request for a face to face meeting to discuss their "request HRT once a month in handwriting" was that I have been issued with a prescription for 3 months Oestrogel at a time - no meeting. Perhaps they are too busy to devote time to this , perhaps they are fed up of me complaining about their lack of communication problems but I have what I wanted. Perhaps this is the only way @jlpartnerrs . You have to be assertive. 3 months is of course the current limit advised by the HRT Czar. As regards the shortage of HRT @Parker231 we are all well aware of this but we were talking about the stage before that - trying to even get a prescription for it.

I’m in this position as well so I’m going to write to the practice. I’m paying approx £30 per quarter for the pre payment card as I get the 2 prescriptions a month for HRT. So am paying £120 per year whereas those with 6 monthly prescriptions are paying £36 per year.

Play them at their own game. Make an appointment every single month for your hrt review/symptom related to hrt. Ask for your prescription at that time.

The trouble with the ‘play them at their own game’ is thinking anyone will even notice you are taking up an expensive appointment each month and connect that to the fact you’re having it to get a monthly prescription. Sorry to say, there isn’t joined up thinking on a lot of this stuff. It’s mad and so wasteful.

For some of my non-HRT stuff, I’ve been told to have an appt with the Nurse, had one, prescription issued incorrectly, been told to have an appointment with pharmacist, had one, turns out only GP can actually change prescription, needed an appt with them. So, what could have been 1 appointment involved 3 expensive slots plus about 5 phone calls.

I go directly to GP now and put things in writing if required to make sure action happens, with all correspondence directed to GP and practice manager.

in the phone calls with GP, I ask them to read out the prescription they are electronically prescribing to the pharmacy in town, so I can query any errors then and then and there, rather than only finding out 2 days later when at pharmacist. If I can, I research stuff before my appointment so I can ask right questions and query next steps etc - these are often not mentioned. And if anything has been orescribed, I ask for it to go onto repeat whilst talking to GP who can do it instantly. Then in future it’s a case of going onto my NHS APP and clicking box and not having the palaver. Asking for repeats medication to be added to list via the online Form or via reception never seems to get anywhere…has to be authorised by GP, so I go straight to the organ grinder now, due to bitter experience. I’ve said before, health inequalities are no surprise when you need to gather information, be a bit sharp elbowed and not be fobbed off and know the system to get the best outcomes. It’s not designed to make access easy and open to all equally unfortunately

Oh I just told them what I was doing, what I wanted, and what I would continue to do. If I need my prescription monthly then I need a monthly review - otherwise, they could prescribe it more often. It's logical.

I got what I wanted