Repeat Prescribing System Management

The Repeat Prescription system collects patient identifying details, the list of items required, and sends the order by email to the practice. Optionally, at the choice of the patient, the patient can receive an email confirming the details of their request so that they can establish that their order was accepted by the system.

Some validation is performed on the data submitted by the patient, though this cannot be foolproof. Only orders which include a name for the preparation and full patient details will be accepted.

Using the Repeats Administration screen you can set the various parameters listed below.

Configuration Options

Waiting Days before collection

Set here the number of full working days that you want to tell the patient to wait before expecting their prescription to be ready. For most practices this should be set to one or two. For example if you set this to one day, then if a patient orders a prescription on a Monday evening or Tuesday before 7am they will be told to expect it to be ready on the Wednesday. The time of collection on the Wednesday is set by the next section below.

Weekends (and bank holidays) are automatically excluded as not being working days, so if you set the number of days here to two and a patient orders on a Wednesday evening or Thursday morning before 7am they will be asked to collect on Monday.

Collection Time

The Collection day is set by the section above. This section sets the time on that day that you say that you will have prescriptions available for collection. Typically you will set a time in the afternoon to allow prescription preparation during the morning/lunchtime, or you may offer an early morning pickup if you have set a larger number of days in the section above.

Cutoff Time

You ask for a certain number of whole working days before a prescription can be collected. This parameter sets the cutoff time after which today is regarding as having started and then tomorrow is regarded as the first whole working day. Typically you will set this to about 7am, so that any prescriptions ordered during the working day start their counted working days from tomorrow. Prescriptions ordered earlier in the night or the previous day will be received when you collect your email in the morning and so can be processed today.

If you are regularly collecting email during the day you may feel that you can set a later time here and still meet the estimated repeat preparation time.

Patient Number

Say Yes if you want to give the patient a box to enter their practice number (if known). Default is No. This box is optional even if activated, i.e. patients may leave it blank. It may assist you to identify patients if you ask them to enter their number here e.g. copy it from their repeat prescription slip.

Which Doctor?

This selection item lets you choose whether or not the patient should be offered a drop down list from which to select the doctor whom they expect to be most easily able to deal with their prescription request. If you don't want this item to be included on the repeat order page then select "No" here.

You also have an opportunity to edit the text associated with this item.

Script Message Box?

This selection item lets you choose whether or not the patient should be offered a message box into which they may type messages to be sent to you together with their prescription order e.g. to explain that they are ordering early because they are going away on holiday. If you don't want this to be included on the repeat order page (e.g. if you do not want your staff to receive unstructured email messages) then select "No" here.

You also have an opportunity to edit the text associated with this item.

Password for Prescription Ordering

If you are concerned about the possibility of hoax prescription orders then enable the password checking on the repeats screen.

Note If you set up a password you will have to issue this password to all patients who wish to use the system.

If you wish to change the password you will have to notify all patients that it has changed and issue the new password.

If you wish to discontinue use of the password then blank the password box in the configuration screen - be sure to blank it properly removing spaces as well as letters/numbers. Default is no password. This password can be the same as or different to the password on the appointment booking system, it's up to you.

Checkbox to confirm that the patient has read the Privacy Notice?

This selection item lets you choose whether or not the patient should be shown a checkbox to tick to confirm that they have read the privacy notice. Default is Yes, in which case the prescription request will not be accepted if they have not ticked this box. If you do not wish this box to be required then select No and it will not be displayed or required. Changing this setting in any area (prescriptions, appointment, registration/address updates) changes it for all these areas).

Customise the patient messages on the Repeat Prescription Ordering Screen

You can change the text of most of the repeat ordering screen to suit your requirements. Be sure to view the finished result to make sure that it works as you intended.

Any text that you enter will automatically be enclosed in justified paragraph tags, so there is no need for you to enter paragraph tags. Each box will be displayed as a separate paragraph, as will each new line within each box.

Certain special "phrases" can be used to put dynamic content into your text. For example the due date for collection of prescription is always changing, so you cannot type that in your text. But if you type instead %%collectiondue then the page will display the collection due day and time. The special phrases are listed here:

• %%waitdays will be replaced by a figure for the number of waiting days that you specify above.
  
  
• %%collecttime will be replaced by the time after which the prescription may be collected
  
  
• %%collectiondue will be replaced by the full date/time when prescriptions may be collected e.g.
  
  
• %%privacynotice will be replaced by a hyperlink to the practice's own Privacy Notice page.
  
  

HTML tags which you may find useful

If you wish you can include most html tags. Below are some examples of html tags you may find useful, though you can also use others. Most tags are used in pairs, an opening tag to indicate the start of some formatting, and a closing tag to indicate the return to standard formatting.

It is actually better to use the style sheet to set style and formatting, but that is more complicated and for minor matters such as highlighting in bold, using the tags below is quite acceptable.

• To make a word or words appear in <B>bold</B> use tags like this.
  
  
• To make a word or words appear in <I>italic</I> use tags like this.
  
  
• Try making text <big>big</big> or
  
  <big><big>bigger</big></big>
  
  or perhaps you prefer <small>small</small> or
  
  <small><small>smaller</small></small>
  
  
• To make words appear in colour use tags like this:
  
  <FONT COLOR="RED">colour</FONT>
  
  
• To include a hyperlink enter a filename and a description like this
  
  <A HREF="filename">Link Description</A>
  
  "filename" could be
  
  
  • just the name e.g. opentimes.html if that file is in the same directory as your page, or
    
    
  • include the directory "docs/filename.html" if it is in your docs subdirectory, or
    
    
  • the full address if it is a link to somewhere else "http://www.myserver.co.uk/subdirectory/filename.html"
    
    
• To include a picture upload the file to your images directory and include a link like this
  
  <IMG SRC="images/filename" alt "description of picture" height = "73" width = "124">
  
  give the full address if the picture file is somewhere else e.g. instead of "images/filename" put "http://www.myserver.co.uk/subdirectory/imagefile.jpg"
  
  

Introduction Page

This page gives general information and instructions.

Order Page

This is the actual order page. You may wish to repeat the most important instructions.

Password Information

This gives information on the patient password option. It is only displayed if you have set a user password.

Usual Doctor

This gives information on the usual doctor selection. It is only displayed if this option is active (which it is by default).

Collection Instructions

You may set your own collection options and associated instructions and messages. Spaces for up to six options are provided, if you need more than that then please email support and ask us to set up more options.

If you clear either or both parts of an option then that option will no longer be offered to the patients.

If you complete both boxes for an option then that option will be displayed at the botom of the prescription ordering page.

The first box is for your choice of message to reception and to the patient about the option selected. This text is used for:

• the confirmation screen
  
  
• the email to reception
  
  
• the email to the patient if the opt to receive an email confirmation
  
  

The second box is to set the text next to the selection button at the bottom of the ordering page. Use this to give the patient brief instructions and information regarding that option.

You may wish to include the collection date/time in either of these boxes (using in both is recommended) so that there is no ambiguity either for reception or for your patients regarding the due date/time. Of course you cannot enter the date/time yourself since it will keep changing. If instead you enter %%collectiondue then the system will not display %%collectiondue but instead will replace it with the calculated due date/time according to your selections of waiting days and collection time.

The first option is the default option, i.e. unless the patient makes an alternative selection the first option will apply. Put as your first option the one that you prefer to be the default, probably collection in person from the (main) surgery.

If you only offer one option then you may either simply enter that option alone, or you may delete all the options in this section but describe your arrangements in the text above. In that case the messages to the patient and reception will state the time when the prescription will be expected to be ready, but will not be specific about from where to collect it nor any other matters.

Encryption

For information on encrypting the emails from your prescriptions system to your practice read the Encryption Help Page.

Running mode.

CAUTION This switches the repeat prescription system between DEMO mode and STANDARD mode. Actually all it does is to insert or remove the warning messages at the top and bottom of each screen, so that patients know whether or not the system is in operation. This does not affect any of the settings above. The Demo mode is the fully working system with the only difference being the warning messages.

The system is initially configured in Demo mode so that you can evaluate and customise it. Just play with it and try ordering prescriptions for yourself, and so on. When you are confident that it is a trustworthy and useful system then switch it into live mode and publicise it to your patients. You may then not need to use this option again, but if for any reason you wish to temporarily disable the system in the future you could use this option to return the display to demo mode.

CAUTION Before using the system in Standard mode, and also to get the best understanding of it in Demo mode, ensure that you have set up a valid repeat prescription email address (which for demo/test purposes may be an alternative address such as your home email). Please follow the instructions on setting up and using the system before switching to live mode.