Looking for something else entirely - related to England, not Wales - I happened to see this:
Wales moves to longer standard prescribing cycles to 'free capacity'
Pharmacy Magazine, 14 Feb 2022
From April this year, GPs in Wales are being asked to move to a 56-day prescribing cycle for suitable patients to help “release capacity” for practices and community pharmacies.
In a guidance document published last Tuesday (February 8), Community Pharmacy Wales and the Welsh General Practice Committee recommended that the standard prescription cycle be increased from 28 days to 56 to allow GPs and pharmacies to focus more on services, and to reduce the number of trips patients have to make to their pharmacy or doctor.
This follows a Government report last year looking at dispensing volumes in pharmacies that found Wales was “behind other countries” in moving to extended prescribing intervals, and that there was only “limited” evidence to uphold the claim that 28-day prescribing helps reduce medicine waste.
I have 3 items on my prescription that are issued for 28 days at a time and one that is bi-monthly. I've had May and June's prescriptions and nothing has changed yet
If ever I have need to see a GP I will. System for repeat prescription here is drop repeat form in the box on the wall outside the pharmacy, they take it to the surgery then next day they pick up new prescription then a week later you get a text to say you can pick your meds up.
Many people say it's a step back in time where I live 🤣
It suits me, it's only 5 minutes from where I live and I can pop it in the box when I take the dog for a walk
The box on the wall outside came about during the pandemic. Like everywhere there were restrictions on number of people in shop and distancing, so because it's a small shop only 3 people allowed in total (standing on designated spot), one only at the counter. So there was always a queue which stretched down the street. So after a while someone with a brain decided it wasn't really right that people had to queue, often for an hour or more, just to hand in a prescription, so the idea of a box outside was born!
Then they stopped making up the repeat prescriptions at the local pharmacy so they started being sent to Runcorn in Cheshire from Wales. The repeat meds come back in crates every day which then stay stacked up at the back of the shop for a few days (hence a week to get your repeat meds) although they do dispense "GP issued on the day" prescriptions.
I had a text last week to say my prescription was ready for collection, my son was going past the next day so popped in to get if or me, only to be told it's not ready, he replied I'd received a text the day before so it must be so they looked again and hallelujah they found it (that happens repeatedly).
We haven't had a permanent pharmacist for a couple of years, we get locums commute daily, usually from the West Midlands which is 2 hours plus driving, and often we see a notice "No pharmacist until noon today, sorry for any inconvenience". Not ideal!
mines quite civilised. once every 2 months i walk a mile and a half up the beach to the big health hub and post my repeat in the wooded box in the porch.(the sign has now gone back to saying 'please allow 48hrs' ... it was saying '5 days' during the pandemic) then a couple of days later i just pop to the chemist round the corner from my front door and pick it up (and check it's not Teva before leaving )
Mine I order every 84 days - online. And get an SMS from the pharmacy a few days later.
It doesn't always work - at least once, no SMS. And they appear utterly incompetent at achieving an urgent prescribe and dispense. But good enough if you have some in hand.
Living in urban areas, it's easy to forget or not even realise that there are still areas of the UK (not just Wales) that don't have reliable broadband or mobile signals. It was a problem for children schooling from home during the pandemic.
They’ve stopped taking the paper ones for repeats (something that came in with Covid and has just stayed to become the norm) at my surgery and you can only phone them in between certain times on 3 days of the week, so if you forget, you’ve had it! Thankfully, I can still order them at any time online and it usually takes 3 days for them to be ready. It would be so much easier if this could be extended to 56days’ worth!
We can't phone the surgery for repeats at all, if you don't take the repeat form to the pharmacy you have to post them through the surgery's letter box.
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