Changes in Controlled Drug Requisition Forms and new wording for instalment prescriptions
Requisition forms
On 30 November 2015 health professionals obtaining supplies of schedule 2 and schedule 3 controlled drugs in the community must use a mandatory requisition form.
The requirement to use the mandatory form applies to the professionals listed:
- A practitioner
- A person who is in charge of a laboratory
- The owner of a ship, or the master of a ship which does not carry a doctor among the seamen employed in it
- The master of a foreign ship in a port in Great Britain
- The installation manager of an offshore installation
- Paramedics
- The person in charge or acting person in charge of an organisation providing ambulance
The form must be used only when stocks of the relevant controlled drugs are to be obtained in the community, including from wholesalers but outside settings such as hospitals where supply to wards are governed by different provisions. The scope of the form includes pharmacy to pharmacy transfer of stocks.
Professionals can complete the form online or download onto local drives prior to the form being completed, printed and signed in wet ink. However, the form is designed to reset anytime it is saved with added data to prevent confidential details of requisitioners falling into the wrong hands. The form also has an in-built security mechanism which generates a unique code when completed electronically. This facility is not available for forms that are printed blank.
Please note: All GP practices including dispensing doctors will now have to use the new requisition forms when ordering from a wholesaler, however community pharmacies don’t. All practices that have previously used a wholesaler to order CD’s should have been supplying a signed order but this didn’t have to be the requisition form.
The new approved requisition form, in electronic format, is available here.
The supplier must then submit all CD requisitions they have processed to the NHS Business Services Authority on a monthly basis, using the FP34PCD form which should be downloaded from the NHS BSA website.
New wording for instalment prescribing
Additionally, the Home Office has approved new wording for instalment prescribing. The new wording can be used immediately and can also be ‘mixed and matched’ to express the prescriber’s intention. However, as usual, where this intention is not clear it may be necessary, subject to the professional judgment of pharmacy teams and dispensers, to contact the prescriber. The new wording may be found at Annex A of the Home Office Circular (027/2015).