Same day urgent or emergency prescriptions

Same day urgent or emergency prescriptions are requests for medication which a patient needs within 24 hours to prevent them from becoming severely ill.

Same day urgent or emergency prescriptions requests are NOT requests for medication which has been ordered late, or which should have been collected from a hospital pharmacy following clinic or discharge.

Emergency medication is normally ONLY the following:

  • antianginal – GTN sprays, beta blockers
  • anticoagulants – apixaban, dabigatran, edoxaban, rivaroxaban, warfarin
  • emergency contraception
  • emerade, epipen, jext for severe allergic reactions
  • epilepsy medication
  • inhalers (reliever type / blue inhaler)
  • insulin-based medications
  • prednisolone (long term)
  • medications for palliative care patients.

All urgent requests for medication have to be reviewed and approved by a doctor or an independent prescriber before an electronic prescription is generated and sent to your nominated pharmacy. For our dispensing patients, emergency prescriptions are available for collection from St Mary’s dispensary between 5.30-6.00pm.

We will endeavour to text or phone you to advise when the electronic prescription has been sent or the medication is ready to collect.

Please be kind to our dispensary staff who may not always be able to agree to your requests in the timeframe you wish as they will be awaiting a reply from the doctors and prescribing team who will already be dealing with other patients.

Collecting from local pharmacies

Both Lloyds at Sainsbury’s and Tesco’s in Ely are open later in the evenings.

Lloyd’s at Sainsbury’s is usually open 07.00-23.00 Mon-Fri, 07.00-22.00 Sat and 10.00-16.00 Sun

Tesco’s pharmacy is usually open 06.30-22.30 Mon-Fri, 06.30-22.00 Sat and 10.00-16.00 Sun

Updated: 22.7.22