Requests for NHS prescriptions as continuation of private prescriptions

NHS guidelines advise that NHS and private care should be kept as separate as possible to avoid NHS subsidising of private care and any uncertainty or potential conflicts about clinical responsibility. It is therefore our Practice policy that we will not mix NHS and private prescribing for the same condition. There may be instances where a certain medication initiated by a private clinician is not endorsed for NHS GP prescribing on the basis of cost benefit analysis as assessed by NICE or that the local ICB does not permit it. There is a local “traffic light” system of prescribing where red is specialist only prescribing, amber is GP prescribing  with specialist support and green is for GP prescribing. Thus it may be the case that a medication is amber but if there is not an ongoing NHS specialist support, we would not be able to prescribe this.

In regards to private specialist menopause and andropause clinics, we do not take on co-prescribing of very high dose regimens or atypical regimens which are not supported by local NHS specialists and for which there is no safety data. In such cases you will need to obtain the whole of your HRT prescription from your private specialist. If your specialist advocates a prescription which is within mainstream accepted safe practice we would be happy to take over NHS prescribing of this for you. The prescriber whose name is on the prescription is the clinician with whom clinical responsibility and liability lies and in line with the “GMC Duties of a Doctor” guidance on prescribing we have to satisfy ourselves that the prescription is appropriate.