Dispensing medicines

Dispensing Medicines & Appliances

This page provides information about this service and where it is located.

About this Service

Our pharmacies will supply your medicines and appliances, as per your NHS prescriptions. They may then supplement the dispensing with information and advice when required. The dispensing process starts when the pharmacy receives a prescription from your GP practice.

The team will your print the prescription, pick and label items against the prescription and finally, sign the label. Next, a check is carried out by a pharmacist or accuracy-checking technician to ensure the medicines that have been picked are correct. This is followed by a clinical check performed by the pharmacist who will determine whether the medications are safe for use for the patient in question. They must consider a whole range of factors from drug-drug interactions, how to minimise the side-effects of a drug, the patient’s age, ethnicity, sex and co-morbidities, what the appropriate dose of the medicine is, the legalities of the prescription and more.

Once these checks are complete, the medicines are stored awaiting collection. Upon collection, the team will provide any advice and information that is required.

What our Team do

Our team will ensure you receive medicines and appliances safely by:

performing appropriate legal, clinical and accuracy checks
having safe systems of operation, in line with clinical governance requirements
having systems in place to guarantee the integrity of products supplied
maintaining a record of all medicines and appliances supplied which can be used to assist future patient care
maintaining a record of advice given, and interventions and referrals made, where the pharmacist judges it to be clinically appropriate
providing information and advice to the patient on the safe use of their medicine or appliance
providing, when appropriate, broader advice to the patient on the medicine, for example its possible side effects and significant interactions with other substances
advising on the safe storage and keeping of medicines and of the recommendation that unwanted medicines should be returned to the pharmacy for safe destruction.

Where can this service be located?

This Service can be accessed at all of our pharmacies. Click on the links below to navigate to your chosen pharmacy;