Repeat prescribing service for GP practices and PCNs
Repeat prescribing service for GP practices and PCNs
What the service covers
Our repeat prescribing service takes the daily queue of repeat requests off your GPs and works it inside your own clinical system. Our clinical team checks each request against the patient’s record; appropriately authorised prescribers make prescribing decisions within their competence. The team passes to a GP only the requests that need a GP’s decision. Every action is coded on the record as it is done.
Repeat requests arrive every day. Handled as a managed service, they are worked to one protocol every day, including through leave and sickness.
- Prescribing decisions on routine repeat requests made by appropriately authorised prescribers within their competence and the agreed protocol
- Prescription signing by our independent prescribers
- Checking medicine-specific monitoring before authorisation, including blood tests where clinically indicated
- Spotting early or excessive ordering, duplicate items and possible dependency
- Tidying repeat lists: removing discontinued items, correcting acute and repeat mismatches and aligning quantities
- Applying formulary switches flagged by ScriptSwitch, OptimiseRx or your ICB’s own decision-support tool
- Moving suitable patients onto electronic repeat dispensing (eRD)
- Answering related queries from patients and community pharmacies
- Flagging patients due a medication review, so the review is booked at the right time
Who does the work
Requests are handled by our clinical team: more than 100 GPhC-registered pharmacists and pharmacy technicians working under one clinical governance framework. 85% of our pharmacists are independent prescribers, so many prescribing decisions can be completed within their competence without waiting for a GP.
Technicians take the work that suits them, such as list tidying and eRD set-up, so pharmacist time goes to the clinical checks. The same core team stays with your practice and learns your protocols, your formulary and your patients.
How it works day to day
- We agree the repeat prescribing protocol with you: what we authorise, what we check first and what goes to a GP.
- Our team works the repeat queue remotely through secure, NHS-approved access to EMIS, SystmOne, Vision or Medicus.
- Each request is checked against the record for monitoring, interactions, dose and ordering pattern before it is issued.
- Requests that need a GP are passed through the escalation route you chose, with the reason written on the record.
- You receive regular reporting on requests handled, changes made and items escalated.
- Cover for leave and sickness sits with us, so the queue is worked on schedule.
A managed service, not extra headcount
You commission a defined workload, and we deliver it under our own clinical governance. The protocol, the clinical supervision, the quality checks and the cover all sit with us. Your practice sets the priorities and keeps every decision that needs a GP. There is nothing to recruit, no rota to build and no gap in the queue when someone is away.
For a PCN, the same protocol can run in every member practice, with reporting for each practice and for the network.
What our clinical team has delivered
Repeat prescribing usually sits alongside other medicines work, and these published results come from that wider work:
- A Derbyshire practice used an ICB scheme paying £80 for each clinically appropriate anticoagulant switch. Of 65 patients screened, 37 were switched and the practice claimed £2,960. We then ran the same model in a second ICB.
- A practice of around 6,000 patients handed over its medicines-related QOF work in August. One governed pathway supported around 26 indicators, with registers worked across the year.
- A nine-practice PCN in Lincolnshire received 315 hours of medication reviews in a first block, to one pathway and one clinical standard, then moved to a full-year contract.
We have supported 375+ GP practices and 88+ PCNs across 23 ICB areas and all seven NHS regions. Ask and we will arrange a reference call with a practice doing similar work. Read the case studies.
Governance and data security
Virtual Pharmacist meets the NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit standards for 2025-26, holds Cyber Essentials certification and is registered with the ICO (ZB127110). All work is done inside your own clinical system, so patient data stays where it already lives. Read our clinical governance and data security framework.
Virtual Pharmacist won the Pharmacy Solutions Provider award at the General Practice Awards.
Related services and reading
Enhances patient safety and safeguarding
Reviewing any required monitoring, interactions, risks and dependencies.
Saving money and resources for practices and ICBs
Reducing over-ordering and duplicate supplies.
Reducing repeat workloads
Transitioning suitable patients onto electronic Repeat Dispensing (eRD).
Safety monitoring for high-risk medicines prescriptions
Including opioids, DOACs and insulin.
All decisions are coded, documented and auditable
Supporting CQC inspections and demonstrating safe prescribing.
Routine requests handled to your protocol
Appropriately authorised prescribers decide whether to authorise requests within their competence and the agreed protocol. Requests needing a GP decision are referred with the reason recorded.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What does a repeat prescribing service do?
A repeat prescribing service handles your practice's repeat requests to an agreed protocol. With Virtual Pharmacist, our clinical team checks each request against the record. Appropriately authorised prescribers make prescribing decisions within their competence and the agreed protocol. Requests needing a GP decision are referred, and actions are coded in the record.
How do you keep repeat prescribing safe?
Every request is checked for monitoring that is due, interactions, dose, dependency risk and early or excessive ordering before it is issued. Anything outside the protocol goes to a GP with the reason recorded.
Who decides what you can authorise?
Only a clinician with the required prescribing authority can authorise and sign prescriptions. The agreed protocol does not extend that authority. We agree the protocol with your clinical lead at the start, including which medicines always go to a GP, and review it with you as the service runs.
Can you tidy up our repeat medication lists?
Yes. We remove discontinued or recalled items, correct acute and repeat mismatches, align quantities to reduce waste, switch to formulary choices and flag patients who may benefit from deprescribing at their next review.
Do you use ScriptSwitch or OptimiseRx?
Yes. We apply recommendations from ScriptSwitch, OptimiseRx or your ICB's own decision-support tool where they are clinically right for the patient.
Which clinical systems do you work in?
We work in EMIS, SystmOne, Vision and Medicus, through secure, NHS-approved remote access arranged with your practice.
Can a PCN commission repeat prescribing for every practice?
Yes. A network can run one protocol across all its member practices, sized to each practice's volume, with reporting for each practice and for the network.
How is this different from recruiting a prescribing pharmacist?
With a service, we take responsibility for delivering the agreed workload under our own governance, and cover for leave or sickness sits with us. With recruitment, the practice hires, supervises and covers the role itself.
Repeat prescribing optimisation
Alongside the daily queue, our team improves the repeat lists themselves, so fewer requests need a clinical decision and less medicine is wasted. The optimisation work is agreed with your clinical lead and done to the same protocol as the daily requests.
Repeat list reviews
Discontinued and recalled items removed, acute and repeat mismatches corrected and duplicates cleared, with every change recorded.
Synchronised quantities
Quantities and issue dates aligned so a patient’s medicines run out together, which means fewer requests and fewer early orders.
Review dates and monitoring
Medication review and monitoring dates checked at each request. Patients who are overdue are flagged as agreed with you, and those who would benefit are put forward for a structured medication review.
Electronic repeat dispensing
Suitable patients on stable medicines moved onto electronic repeat dispensing (eRD), so they no longer need to request each month.
Formulary and decision support
Formulary choices applied, with recommendations from ScriptSwitch, OptimiseRx or your ICB’s own tool used where they are clinically right for the patient.
Over-ordering and waste
Early and excessive ordering picked up at each request, so medicines are not stockpiled and less is wasted.
Repeat prescription management that reduces GP workload
With the queue and the lists both handled, routine repeat prescription management moves off your GPs. Requests are checked and issued to protocol, and only the ones that need a GP’s decision reach them, with the reason recorded. For a build-up of overdue requests, see prescription backlog support; for one-off medicines, see acute prescription request reviews. Networks can run one repeat protocol across every member practice: see PCN pharmacist services.
