Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support is available for people who are struggle to manage monthly in-person appointments to obtain repeat prescriptions of long-term medicine.

No assessment has been made as patients are not routinely required to attend monthly in person appointments in order to obtain long-term prescribed medicines. Information on how to order a repeat prescription is available on the NHS.UK website at the following link:

https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/prescriptions/how-to-order-a-repeat-prescription/

General practices are independent business that hold contracts with the NHS to perform essential services to the public. As a part of this contract, we require practices to provide online consultation tools. Online consultation tools are designed to accommodate a wide range of patient needs. They improve accessibility of booking appointments, requesting repeat prescriptions, and simplify the registration process by allowing patients to engage with their practice remotely, without the need to attend in person.