Help reduce repeat prescribing waste – Report via SIRMS

New Tick Box Added to the Medication Field in SIRMS to flag where waste has occurred

To make it easier to identify and investigate waste in the repeat prescription ordering process, we’ve added a specific field with a yes/no dropdown – to highlight where waste has occurred in repeat prescribing systems.

If you encounter waste, then make an entry on SIRMS within the Medication Section and select “Yes” as shown below:

This will help us to run reports and investigate incidents relating to waste.  We’ll look at all the incidents and where necessary put steps in place to prevent this happening again.

Feedback will be given regionally and at your local prescribing group, so you’ll be making a real difference in reducing unnecessary prescribing waste in the NHS.

Examples of things you should report in this way:

Any incident where patients get unnecessary quantities of medicines ordered by a third party, resulting in waste to the NHS.  For example this could be a care home or community pharmacy ordering excessive quantities of PRN medicines that weren’t required.

Any deficiency in your practice repeat ordering system that could allow waste to occur- please report this so that others can learn from your experience.