Keep up to date on recent developments within RapidCare and the ostomy scene with our headline news service. Regularly updated, we trust this small service will prove useful to you.

General News

NEW PRESCRIPTION SYSTEM FROM APRIL 2010

Many knowledgeable customers and healthcare professionals may have noticed that there has been quite a stir in the Ostomy dispensing business recently. This is due to new operational guidelines and payment terms for dispensing contractors that were introduced from April 2010.

Following over 5 years of consultations, reports to and from Whitehall and countless meetings with interested personnel, the Department of Health finally concluded that the best way to enable their licensed dispensers to serve the ostomy community was to reduce their income and increase their administration load.    

Most companies will have little choice but to rise to the challenge at significant financial cost, but it wont be easy.

The next step in the process is the introduction of a fully electronic prescription system. One key aspect of this system is that customers will not be able to request more than ONE MONTHS REQUIREMENTS at a time. As we are suspicious that many GP's will find this step a large one, we are going to try and assist them to become attuned to the process in advance.

In short, we need to ask patients to ask their GP’s to start issuing prescriptions for no more than one months requirements (on each form) with immediate effect.  Of course there is nothing to prevent the GP from issuing more than one form at a time!!

It is the intention of the Dept. of Health to introduce this fully electronic prescription system within the next 2 years and this will rely entirely on GP’s automatically issuing monthly orders. Of course it will be perfectly possible to ask us to effect less than one delivery per month (one every quarter perhaps if that suits you).  In the meantime, we all need to help GP's and the PPA (prescription Pricing Authority) to become attuned to a monthly ordering system a.s.a.p.

The motto seems to be 'less, more often'! Rather like a diet I suppose, the message there is 'little and often' too isn't it!

Please feel free to call if you have any questions about this change.  We all have a lot to learn very quickly!