Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 27 April 2023 to Question 182114 on Prescriptions, whether his Department plans to issue guidance to pharmacies to help ensure that prescriptions for residents of care homes are dispensed and dispatched promptly.

Community pharmacies are already legally required to provide ordered medicines with ‘reasonable promptness’. Pharmacies may need to order medicines from the wholesalers before fulfilling the order and should notify the patient or the patient’s representative when the medicines will be in stock. A toolkit and supporting documents for setting up proxy access for ordering repeat prescriptions for care home residents is available on the NHS England website.