With a Bank Holiday
coming up, NHS Kent and Medway is urging patients who take regular medication
to check they have enough to see them through.
Earlier this year, at
Easter and the Queen’s diamond jubilee weekend, dozens of patients who had
forgotten to renew their prescriptions spent their bank holidays in Accident
and Emergency departments or out-of-hours doctors’ clinics. Medway On Call Care
(MedOCC) which provides out of hours GP and nursing care in Medway, even had to
organise a special clinic.
With most GP surgeries
and many pharmacies closed on Monday 27 August, it is important that people
plan ahead.
Dr James Thallon,
Co-Medical Director for NHS Kent and Medway, said: “Renewing your
prescription and getting your medication is very quick and easy if you do it
through your GP practice and usual pharmacy.
“That’s why we would urge
people to check now that they will not run out of medication over the bank
holiday weekend.
“A&E departments and
out of hours doctors are there to look after people who are suddenly taken ill
or are injured – and people who have just forgotten to get their medication
will have to wait to be seen. It is not a good use of people’s free time or of
NHS resources.”
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10 August 2012
