If you have been informed by your pharmacist that your medication is out of stock there are a number of things you can consider:

Local supply issue

If it is a local supply issue, you can ask your pharmacy to print off a prescription token (or send your prescription back to the electronic spine) so that you can attempt to collect this medication from another pharmacy. You can then attend another pharmacy and provide your details for them to find your prescription.

National supply issue

If it is a national supply issue, you can ask your pharmacy what the alternative might be. This information would then need to be relayed to the practice either by yourself (or the pharmacist on your behalf) so that a new prescription can be submitted.

The pharmacy can only issue what has been prescribed

The pharmacy is unable to prescribe an alternative to a medication unless it has been signed off by the practice. This would require contacting the surgery to make any change. It can be frustrating when this happens. We kindly ask that you work with our pharmacy colleagues if this occurs as they try to assist you.

Sometimes, we may have to contact your hospital specialist when a medication is out of stock as it is not always obvious if a like for like replacement exists. If this occurs you may want to contact the hospital specialist yourself to highlight this issue and ask for an alternative recommendation which they will need to send in writing for the practice to verify.