NHS England (NHSE) has released a new NHS App feature for all EMIS practices across north central London to display the full list of medicines when making a repeat prescription request, including medicines which are currently unavailable to request.

In the NHS App, EMIS patients can request their repeat medicines at any time, provided there isn’t an existing pending request for that medicine. This behaviour is determined by EMIS, not the NHS App.

This has resulted in patient confusion about which medicines they have recently requested and has also led to over ordering and early ordering, resulting in GP practice rejections.

Patients will now see their complete repeat medicines list when making a request, including:

• medicines available to request
• medicines already requested
• clear guidance on when to request their medicines (up to 5 working days before you need them)
• ‘prescribed next’ date shown alongside the ‘Last prescribed’ date for each medicine

These improvements aim to reduce over ordering and unnecessary requests, decrease administrative burden for GP practices, and improve the overall patient experience.

The prescription flow has also been updated to meet NHS Design Standards and improve usability. 

NHSE is gathering feedback to understand the impact of this change to support the national roll‑out.

Please complete this short 5-10 minute survey. Your insights are essential to ensuring the feature works well for both patients and practices.

For more information, download the briefing pack below and visit the dedicated NHS App page.