Request or view prescriptions

If you need your medicine urgently, contact your GP surgery. If it's out of hours, go to NHS 111 online or call 111.

You may not see a medicine listed if:

• it's not been prescribed for at least 6 months
• it was prescribed at a hospital or other secondary care centre
• it was prescribed at a time when you lived outside England
• your GP surgery does not currently offer repeat prescriptions online

If you cannot see a medicine you want to request, contact your GP surgery.

You may not be able to order some medicines if:

• you need a medicine review
• it’s too soon to order your medicine after your previous request
• it’s a one-off course of medicine
• it's already been requested
• you have a repeat dispensing prescription

Contact your GP surgery to book a medicine review or to find out when you can next order your prescription.

If you have a repeat dispensing prescription, your GP will have already approved your medicine for a specific period of time. You do not need to request the medicine again.

If there’s a medicine on the list which you do not expect to see, contact your GP surgery.

Your medicine request needs to be approved by the GP before it can be prepared by the pharmacy. You can view your Requested medicines to see when they've been approved.

Each medicine may be labelled:

• waiting GP approval
• approved by GP
• rejected by GP

Once the medicine has been approved, the request is automatically sent to the pharmacy if you have nominated one.

If the medicine you requested has been rejected and you want to know why, contact your GP surgery.

When your medicine request has been approved, it can be prepared by the pharmacy as a prescription.

Each prescription contains up to 4 medicines. If you're expecting more than 4 medicines, you'll have more than one prescription in the app.

You may now be able to see the progress of your prescriptions by selecting Your approved prescriptions from the homepage. Select the relevant prescription to see the details and progress of each separate medicine within it. This prescription tracking service is being introduced into the app gradually. Not everyone will be able to access it straightaway.

Your prescriptions and medicines may be labelled:

• pharmacy preparing prescription
• pharmacy preparing medicine
• part ready to collect
• part ready for delivery
• ready to collect
• ready for delivery
• cancelled
• cancelled by pharmacy
• collected
• dispatched by pharmacy
• this pharmacy does not provide tracking

If the pharmacy is preparing the prescription or medicine, it means they're working on it and there are no obvious delays. There’s no need to contact the pharmacy.

If your prescription is part ready to collect or part ready for delivery this means that one or more of the medicines are not complete, often because of lack of stock. You can wait until the prescription shows as ready to collect. Or, if you need your medicine urgently, you can collect the part of it that’s ready straight away.

If your prescription or medicine is showing as cancelled this may be because:

• the treatment is no longer suitable for you
• the medicine was not prescribed properly

If you want to know why your medicine or prescription was cancelled, contact your GP surgery.

If you want to know why your medicine or prescription was cancelled by pharmacy, contact the pharmacy.

For some medicines, your pharmacy might ask to check your ID. We recommend that you take photo ID with you when you collect your medicine.

If you have a nominated pharmacy, it usually takes 3-5 days before your prescription is ready to collect. You may be able to see when it's ready to collect in Your approved prescriptions.

If you do not have a nominated pharmacy, take your digital prescription barcode to any pharmacy.

If you've requested more than 4 medicines, you may need to show more than one barcode. You can find your digital barcode in Your approved prescriptions.

You may have to wait at the pharmacy while your prescription is prepared and the pharmacy may need to order more stock before they can complete your prescription.

You can find out more information on Medicines A to Z. If this does not answer your question, contact your nominated pharmacy or GP surgery.