Important:

Important Patient Alert: Beware of Scam Calls

Medication Monitoring

If you have a prescription for:

  • Methotrexate
  • Leflunomide
  • Azathioprine
  • Ciclosporin
  • Mycophenolate
  • Mercaptopurine

We are changing the way we prescribe your medicines and call you in for blood tests.

  • We will be increasing the quantity of the medicine to three months on your prescription, in order to better fit in with the required blood test frequency.
  • If we have your mobile number and you have consented to text messages, you will be sent a reminder to book in for your blood test shortly before coming to the end of your supply of medicine. If you do not have a mobile number, then you will need to keep an eye on your medicine and book in a blood test BEFORE requesting a prescription.
  • If you routinely have your blood tests done at the hospital, we can download these to your records. Please let us know if this is the case.
  • In the event you run out of medicine and have not had a recent blood test, a prescription will be issued for one week, to give you time to book in.
  • Regular blood tests are vital with these medicines. We need to check kidney, liver and blood cell function every three months once you are on a stable dose. At the start of treatment, these blood tests are more frequent.
  • The aim of prescribing three months of these medicines at a time is to help better regulate the timing of blood tests.

If a blood test is due or the results are still awaiting review, the medication may temporarily disappear from the “Repeat Medications” list on the NHS App or online ordering system. This does not mean that your medication has been stopped — it simply means it is awaiting clinical reauthorisation.

Once your blood test results have been checked by a clinician, the prescription will be reauthorised and made available again for online ordering.

Please note that blood test results do not automatically update your repeat prescriptions — they need to be clinically reviewed first. This review is completed when your next prescription request is received.

If you are due to run out of medication and it is not showing on your repeat list, please submit a request through your usual method (for example, using the NHS App’s “Other medication” option or via your pharmacy), and our team will review and process it once your blood tests have been checked.