A serial prescription allows for up to 56 weeks of supply of medication and is part of the Medicines: Care and Review service.

The benefits of using serial prescriptions include:

• reducing GP, practice and pharmacy staff workload
• ensures medicines-related activity is dealt with by the right member of the team, at the right time, safely and efficiently
• more convenient for patients
• improving patient access to long-term prescriptions
• reduces unnecessary footfall into the practice, and
• allows community pharmacy to better manage their workload.

In response to COVID-19, we worked closely with our stakeholders to redesign our improvement support offer. As a result we worked with practices across Scotland, with a revised focus on developing resources for the implementation of serial prescriptions. 

Collaborative teams tested and developed a range of tools and resources that supports general practice and pharmacy teams to set-up and implement serial prescription services. The Serial Prescription Toolkit provides a step-by-step guide and includes a combination of Medicines: Care and Review (MCR), ihub and locally produced resources.