Medicine Manager in practice - a Practice Manager's perspective

December 2003: Melrose Surgery

Medicine Manager is the new service from EMIS and Pharmacy2U that enables the electronic transfer of prescription information. It is designed to provide a more efficient repeat prescribing service.

Repeat prescriptions can often cause a build up of congestion and queues in reception, tie up telephone lines and generally increase administration for practice staff. The idea behind Medicine Manager is to provide a simple and secure repeat prescription service that allows information to be communicated between patient, pharmacy and GP with minimum paperwork. Involving the pharmacy into the process relieves administration duties from practice staff and GPs, while offering convenience and time saving benefits to the patient.

Zoe Clarke, Practice Manager of Melrose Surgery in Reading, is an experienced Medicine Manager user and has been using the service since May 2002. Melrose Surgery opted into the Medicine Manager trial to offer an added value service to patients as well as practice staff and GPs.

Melrose Surgery's experience of Medicine Manager

Zoe comments, "Taking part in Medicine Manager has brought many benefits to our surgery, the most obvious difference being that we don't seem to have many prescriptions disappearing down that 'black hole' that most surgeries have - usually located somewhere between reception and the consulting rooms.

"Overall, Medicine Manager has been a huge success. All of our reception staff welcomed its introduction. Everyone agrees that it is a valuable service to offer our patients, and the reduced workload on repeat prescriptions leaves more time for clinical tasks.

"We encountered a few basic teething problems when we started to use Medicine Manager, as you would expect when introducing any new procedure into a busy practice. These complications were easily resolved once patients and staff became more familiar with the system."

Patient opinion

It is not only the practice staff at Melrose Surgery who are delighted with Medicine Manager. Patients who have taken advantage of the additional facility are also happy. Zoe explains, "They think it's wonderful, it has helped so many of our patients, ranging from the disabled and elderly through to commuters. Anyone who leads a busy lifestyle can benefit from Medicine Manager. I haven't received any complaints about prescriptions not being ready and the number of patients using the service is constantly increasing.

"Medicine Manager has been up and running in our practice for over 18 months and I would definitely recommend the service to other practices."