Patients who live more than 1.6km from their nearest community pharmacy are eligible to have their medication dispensed at the practice. Other patients must take their prescriptions to a pharmacy.
If you are a dispensing patient, your prescription will be sent direct to our dispensary where it will be dispensed as quickly as possible. We pride ourselves on providing fast, efficient, friendly and easily accessible dispensing services for our eligible patients. In accordance with the NHS’s dispensing services quality scheme, all our dispensary staff are either fully trained or undergoing formal training and all are regularly reviewed and assessed for competency.
The dispensary is open at the following times Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday:
- 08:30 -12.30 hours
- 13.30 -18:30 hours
Thursday:
- 08:30-13:00 hours
The dispensary closes for the afternoon of every third Thursday in each month to allow staff time for training.
If you are exempt from paying for prescriptions, please provide evidence of your exemption when collecting your medication. Click on the link below to find the current NHS prescription charges, including annual pre-paid certificates and information on help with paying for NHS charges.
28 Day Prescribing
If you are being prescribed a repeat medicine by your GP he or she will normally prescribe enough of your medicine to last 28 days. The GPs here at Market Rasen Surgery, along with many other GP practices, believe that 28 day prescribing offers the best balance between patient convenience, good medical practice and minimal drug wastage. The benefits for you as a patient:
- You should always start and finish your medicine on the same day of the week which should prevent you running out of medicines at a weekend when it is difficult to get any more.
- Most pharmaceutical companies manufacture a large number of their medicines in 28 day packs. The government is encouraging more companies to manufacture their medicines this way.
- It should reduce the amount of medicines wasted when medicines are changed or stopped. Currently millions of pounds are wasted every year with excess medicines needing to be destroyed – this money could be ploughed back into the NHS.
- It should make it easier for your GP to review the medicines you are taking and also to see if you are not taking the medicines prescribed to you.
- It should reduce mistakes made by elderly patients as there should be less partly filled containers of medicine lying around at home.
- Most patients should only need to visit their GP once a month to collect all their repeat medicines as opposed to a number of visits when different medicines run out at different times.
Medication Reviews
The GPs or practice nurses will review your medication on a regular basis. This can take the form of a face to face interview, by telephone or may be done whilst reviewing your patient notes. As part of the dispensing services quality scheme, dispensary staff may ask you questions regarding your medication, the results of which are entered into your patient record.
If at any time you feel you are having problems with your medication, or you would like further information about them please do not hesitate to bring this to the attention of a dispenser, practice nurse or your GP as they will be only too happy to help.
We are grateful to our patients for supporting the dispensing service as this allows us to continue to provide what we hope iq a friendly first class service.