PRACTICE PRESCRIBING POLICY
Doctors at the Caversham Practice are committed to providing the best available care to all our patients. When a prescription is considered necessary, the drug we consider to be the most appropriate for the particular patient and condition will be prescribed. Our primary considerations are effectiveness and safety. Whilst we always attempt to prescribe cost-effectively (for example by prescribing drugs where possible by their proper or generic names rather than their brand names), we do not let the cost of a drug dictate our prescribing.
We attempt to keep as up-to-date as possible by reference to the best available medical evidence. We try not to be influenced by drug company advertising or unsubstantiated claims in the popular press. This is for your protection and ours: we are held responsible for anything we prescribe. We therefore only prescribe medication that we know enough about and that we have sufficient confidence in.
We are sometimes asked by our hospital colleagues to prescribe new or experimental medication, or medication that is too expensive for the hospital budget to cope with. We are usually happy to co-operate in this way, although sometimes only on the understanding that the hospital specialist maintains clinical supervision of the condition in question.
Patients who see a private specialist are expected to pay the full cost of medication prescribed by that specialist. In general, we will be unable to issue an NHS prescription for drugs prescribed by a private doctor, except where we have agreed to, and made, the private referral and where the above criteria for us to prescribe are met. We do not in any case expect our patients to refer themselves to private doctors without prior discussion with ourselves.
None of us is specifically trained in complementary (alternative) medicine, although we are open-minded and sometimes enthusiastic about the apparent benefits of some types of complementary therapies in some cases. We believe that the criteria for prescribing complementary drugs/remedies should be exactly the same as those for orthodox drugs. We are therefore unable to prescribe these drugs except where they have been suggested by a medically qualified practitioner (or otherwise qualified practitioner whom we have been happy to recommend), and where the practitioner states in writing their willingness to accept clinical responsibility for the drugs in question.
If you plan to travel abroad for anything other than a brief holiday, please read our leaflet prescrbing for patients travelling abroad.