Third Party/Hospital Prescriptions

Sometimes patients are given prescriptions by hospital consultants, either privately or NHS, and those patients approach the surgery asking us to dispense the medication or convert a private prescription to NHS.

We wish to clarify to patients why we cannot deal with such third party prescriptions and why we ask patients to go to a community pharmacy to receive the medication.

NHS Prescriptions  

We are aware that St Richards Hospital no longer has a pharmacy for dispensing outpatient medication (apart from oncology). Hospital consultants may write a green FP10 prescription and give it to the patient during their outpatient consultation. For our dispensing patients, we cannot dispense that medication at the surgery as we would then be taking clinical responsibility for that prescription and therefore become legally liable for the prescribing and consequent effects of that drug.

Some drugs which may be very familiar to consultants in a specialised area of medicine can be potent drugs of which a GP will have little experience. GPs have to be aware of their limitations as well as their skills and must ensure that they are not prescribing beyond their knowledge or their ability to ensure patient safety.

Community pharmacies can however dispense the items prescribed by the hospital and the clinical responsibility will remain with the hospital consultant. Once we have received the full details of that outpatient consultation via a hospital letter and the consultant formally asks us to take over the clinical responsibility for the prescribing of the drug, and the GP is prepared to take that responsibility depending on the nature of the drug prescribed, we can then prescribe going forward and dispense the item(s). A FP10 prescription does not convey the appropriate information or instruction.  

The same reasoning applies to patients who have seen a consultant privately and request us to transfer the prescription to the NHS.  We cannot take clinical responsibility for the prescribing of that item until we have received full details of the outpatient appointment from the consultant. This is to ensure the GP is fully aware of the circumstances and condition of the patient, and the reasons why the consultant wishes the patient to take this new medication; an FP10 prescription does not convey that information or instruction. Even then, replacement of the private prescription with an FP10 may not be appropriate and we will advise patients if this is the case.