Medication Monitoring

If you have a prescription for:

• Methotrexate
• Hydroxychloroquine
• Sulfasalazine
• Leflunomide
• Azathioprine
• Ciclosporin
• Mycophenolate

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

• Starting with Methotrexate, 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.
• The change will only apply initially only to Methotrexate. Once the new process is up and running, we will begin to incorporate the other medications listed above. If you have other medication on repeat, this will remain unchanged.