The week before the cycle starts
Around the same point every month, one person in the home, often the deputy or a senior carer with a medication lead role, builds the repeat order. They go through each resident's current items, tick what is needed, and send the request to the GP surgery or surgeries. Some go by email, some by the surgery's online route, one still wants a paper list dropped off.
Then the chasing starts. The surgery has not issued three items. One resident's prescription went to the wrong pharmacy. A dose was changed mid-month and the order still has the old strength. The pharmacy rings to say an item is out of stock. Every one of these is a phone call, and the outcome of each call is written on a sticky note or in a diary.
When the delivery arrives, someone checks it against the order. Something is missing. Was it never requested, never issued, or never dispensed? Nobody can tell without starting again from the beginning.
Why the order is so hard to follow
A single order passes through three organisations: the home, the surgery and the pharmacy. Each has its own system and none of them shows the whole picture. The home is the only one that cares about every item for every resident, and it has the weakest tools of the three.
Homes with residents registered at more than one surgery have it worse. Different request routes, different turnaround habits, different people to call. The medication lead carries all of that in their head.
Changes made between cycles are the other trap. A hospital discharge, a GP visit or a pharmacist review changes a resident's medication, and unless that change reaches the next order template, the error repeats every month.
What the chasing costs you
| Problem | Effect on the home |
|---|---|
| Items outstanding at cycle start | Urgent calls and last-minute collections |
| Order built from an old list | Wrong strengths requested, then corrected by phone |
| No record of each call | The same item chased twice by two people |
| Delivery checked from memory | Missing items discovered when the round needs them |
| One person holds it all | Their leave or sickness stalls the whole cycle |
The single-person dependency is the one managers worry about most. When the medication lead is off for a week at the wrong time, the order still has to happen, and the person covering starts from nothing.
The tracker we put in place
- A resident medication list held in one place, updated when a change comes in, so each month's order is built from the current list rather than last month's paperwork. If your eMAR holds this list already, we read it from there.
- An order screen that builds the monthly request per surgery, in the format each surgery accepts: an email with a structured list, a printable sheet, or whatever route they use.
- A status for every item: requested, issued, query, dispensed, delivered. Staff update it after each call in a couple of taps, with a note of who they spoke to.
- A chase list showing only what is outstanding, sorted by how close the cycle start is, so the person covering knows exactly what to call about.
- A delivery check against the order, done on a tablet as the bags are opened, which marks anything missing and adds it to the chase list.
- Where your pharmacy offers an ordering portal or data feed, we use it rather than duplicating it.
The tracker records what was asked for and what came back. It does not decide what a resident should be prescribed, and it does not replace any check your pharmacist or policy requires.
A cycle you can hand over
The order goes out from an up-to-date list. When items are outstanding, everyone can see which ones and what was last said about them. If the medication lead is away, the person covering opens the chase list and picks up where things were left.
Delivery checks become quicker because the expected list is already on the screen. And over a few cycles you can see which surgery or which type of item usually causes the delay, which is a useful conversation to have with them.
Does your ordering look like this?
- The monthly order is built from last month's paperwork
- Outstanding items are tracked on sticky notes or in a diary
- Residents are registered with several different surgeries
- Missing items are found when the round needs them
- Ordering stalls when one particular person is off