Barton House Prescription Statement
Barton House Prescription statement
Prescription statement for Barton House
At Barton House Group Practice, the doctors are committed to providing the best available care to all our patients.
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 are not influenced by drug company advertising or unsubstantiated claims in the popular press. This is for both 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.
City & Hackney Medicines Management Teams (MMT).
Our prescribing is overseen by the local City & Hackney Medicines Management Team. The MMT supports the safe, clinically effective, evidence-based, cost efficient, equitable and patient focused use of medicines to enable maximum health gain for City & Hackney residents. They support us in our role as safe, effective and cost efficient prescribers.
We are occasionally asked by our hospital colleagues to prescribe new or very specialist medication and in such circumstance we would often seek the guidance of this team to inform our prescribing decisions.
Prescribing of antibiotics
Often illness we see are caused by viral infections rather than bacterial infections and so do not require antibiotics. Prescribing antibiotics in this situation would not speed up the recovery from the illness and may be harmful as could cause potential side effects. The overuse of antibiotics in recent years means they're becoming less effective and has led to the emergence of "superbugs". These are strains of bacteria that have developed resistance to many different types of antibiotics. We are working as part of a national and worldwide effort to reduce the overuse of antibiotics when they are not needed to prevent further antibiotic resistance and ‘superbugs’.
Private Prescriptions
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.
Alternate / Herbal Medicines
None of us are specifically trained in complementary (alternative) medicine. 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.
It is also important to let your doctor know if you are taking any herbal or alternate medication as these may sometimes cause side effects or interact with your prescribed medication.
Over the Counter Medication
In addition, a lot of medications are available over the counter to buy without a prescription. They are often cheaper to buy this way and due to restrictions put upon us we are no longer able to provide prescriptions for over the counter medications (such as paracetamol, gaviscon etc) except in exceptional circumstances. Please see the list of prescriptions made available over the counter in thr link below:
If you are struggling to afford medications that are available over the counter some of these are available via the healthy start scheme. Please click the link for more information:
https://www.healthystart.nhs.uk/