Dumfries & Galloway Health Board
Prescribing Support Team

Community Pharmacy Forms Unscheduled Care

The Unscheduled Care Pharmacy guide is now ONLY available in electronic format.  It is the responsibility of each individual and contractor to ensure they are operating to the current, up to date version of the PGD. This is available at:

https://www.communitypharmacy.scot.nhs.uk/unscheduled-care/

Within Dumfries and Galloway it has been agreed  that  "unavailable" during the "in hours" period in Dumfries and Galloway  means that it would be appropriate to supply medicines using this PGD when:

  • there is no GP in the practice
  • the pharmacist judges that the requirement for a prescription from a GP would result in an unacceptable delay in the supply of a particular medicine to an individual patient, affecting the continuity of adherence to a medication regimen and/or ongoing patient care.  For example, GPs are in the practice, however;

The patient cannot get an appointment to see their GP within the necessary timeframe

GPs are in surgery but will not be free to authorise or sign prescriptions within the necessary time frame

Although this provides a Board wide consensus statement regarding the terminology around the meaning of “GP unavailable”, Community Pharmacies and GP Practices are encouraged to work closely as a partnership to establish a clear agreement on how best this PGD can be used at a local level to further improve the care of patients.