Melksham Seniors join forces with NHS to resolve repeat prescription frustration

MELKSHAM Seniors have announced that they are working alongside NHS Wiltshire and Giffords Surgery to resolve concerns raised about the new repeat prescription ordering service.

Since November, patients of Giffords Surgery have had to use the Prescription Ordering Direct (POD) telephone service or register online to order their repeat prescriptions.

The new service has been met with a mixed reaction from patients, and concern was raised about the difficulties in getting through, especially for the more vulnerable in the community.

In response to the feedback, local group Melksham Seniors have made a number of suggestions to the NHS Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Giffords Surgery to try and improve the service for older people, including more support to help people get online to use the online service.

A presentation from the CCG that was scheduled for the next Seniors meeting on Monday 15th January has been moved to Thursday 15th February at 10am at the Riverside Club, to allow time for the suggestions made by the group to be tried and tested.

Chair for Melksham Seniors, Brian Warwick said, “The CCG and Giffords Surgery have listened to the complaints and want to take a positive approach to make improvements to the service. We have moved the meeting to a later date so the suggestions that have been made to improve the service can be trialled, to see how effective they are.

“The suggestions made include supporting more older people in getting online, so they can use the online repeat prescription service, rather than the telephone service. A lot of older people don’t have computers or the skills, so with the support of Melksham Seniors, we will try to get more of them online. If people do have problems getting online, we might offer training to help them.

“We also want more sheltered housing to have wifi installed, to increase access to the internet.

“The CCG are also increasing the number of staff on the service and we want to encourage users to try calling at different times of the day, rather than calling all at once on a Monday morning.

“Hopefully by the time the meeting comes around in February we will know how effective these suggestions have been and what other improvements need to be made.

“It’s fantastic that the CCG, Giffords and Melksham Seniors are working together to support the most vulnerable in the community. I am pleased to see a much more positive approach to the problems that have been presented. The new service has been introduced to help reduce the amount of prescription waste in our area, saving NHS Wiltshire £2.7million, so we all need to work together to make this a success.”

The meeting on Thursday 15th February at 10am will begin with a discussion, allowing time for people to share their feedback and make further suggestions for improvements. At 11am representatives from the CCG and Giffords Surgery will give a presentation and answer questions.