How To Order a Prescription The Easy Way

1. See dietician on 22nd January. Due to current inadequate food intake, she prescribes Fortisip food supplements.
2. Letter arrives at both GP and home a few days later, including details of the prescription. Have no idea how to actually get said prescription, as how to get prescriptions after they’ve been sent to your GP was not part of either Danni’s or Johan’s education.
3. See the social worker for a care review the next week. Tell her about the not having any idea how to get the prescription issue. Social worker says she’ll contact the GP to sort it.
4. Get distracted by other issues. Order repeat prescription of painkillers a couple of weeks later. Due to anxiety issues, have to wait a few days for Johan to pick it up from the doctor to take to the chemist. Johan collects painkillers on 18th February. Johan notices that the Fortisips are now on the repeat prescription.
5. Johan tells Danni that Fortisips are on the repeat prescription the next day. Danni asks Johan to order them. Johan attempts to do so that week but the GP’s opening times have changed and they’re closed when he gets there. Johan panics.
6. At the weekend Danni tells Johan he can either put the Fortisips prescription in himself or she can ask carer to do it, but it does need doing. Johan states he doesn’t want the carer to do it.
7. On Monday 24th February Johan calls the GP surgery via Skype to put the prescription in. It would be ready by Wednesday.
8. Wednesday Johan is busy doing stuff in the flat and is unable to get to the GP surgery before closing time. Decides to pick it up Thursday instead, when less busy.
9. Wednesday night upstairs neighbour turns electricity off for both ours and ground floor neighbour’s flat, and turns our back on. Johan sees upstairs neighbour running up the stairs straight afterwards. Ground floor neighbour accidentally turns our electricity back off when trying to turn his back on, and Johan speaks to him outside flat. Upstairs neighbour hears conversation, comes down, denies being responsible for the electricity being turned off, and when Johan informs him he saw him threatens to make Johan’s life hell.
10. Thursday Johan is scared to leave flat due to neighbour’s threats. Johan emails the housing officer about this, and Danni and Johan discuss things that need to be done to ensure safety. Johan not wanting to leave the flat and Danni alone means he cannot go pick up prescription. When carer arrives for evening visit explain everything to her. Carer offers to pick up prescription and put it into the chemist before morning call the next day, as it’s close to where she lives.
11. On Friday (today), carer collects prescription and puts into chemist. Arranges for Fortisips to be delivered on Monday morning. During morning call tells Danni that she managed to sort prescription and when they’re being delivered. Danni is relieved. When Danni manages to wake Johan up she informs Johan of carer’s success and delivery on Monday.

Getting these Fortisips has been a lot more complicated than we expected. At first we didn’t know how to order them (and we’re still not sure if we get a similar situation, though I’m going to ask the GP next time I see her). We were lucky that the social worker came out not long after receiving the letter from the dietician and that she offered to sort it for us, and that the carer was able to pick up the prescription this morning (though she can make phone calls for me as Johan normally picks my medication up with no/only minor issues picking up prescriptions isn’t on my care plan). Hopefully they’ll arrive on Monday and from then on they’ll just be ordered as I need them along with my painkillers. (I know about online ordering of prescriptions but to complete the online registration you have to go to the surgery to prove who you are- which I can’t do. I’m going to ask my GP about it when I next see her.)

We’ve had ongoing issues with our neighbour but this is the first time he’s directly threatened us, so as I’m very vulnerable (being unable to move or easily contact people) Johan doesn’t want to leave me until things calm down. Things we need to do before we’ll feel safer are find out if the care call system still works if the electricity is switched off (as if Johan isn’t in I can’t switch it back on myself) and also get the care call pendant swapped to one I can actually use (as the current one requires too much pressure to push and for that reason I was unable to use it the last time I needed it).

During the last emergency (when Johan had to go into hospital) I ended up communicating via the internet, and if the power goes there’s a good chance I won’t be able to use it as the router goes off. I do have my iPhone with tethering as a backup, but I’m not always able to use my iPhone (hand spasms and shakes make using such a small touchscreen difficult, and impossible when they’re bad) to switch it on. Thanks to Tablet Talk I can send text messages from my tablet via my Android phone which I can use despite spasms, but as far as I’m aware care call don’t have a text number and when I tried contacting the duty social worker via text when Johan was in hospital I got no response at all. In an absolute emergency I can text 999. Most services expect you to phone them and when you can’t you’re stuck.

In the longer term we are going to look into getting our electricity meter moved into our flat, or if that’s not possible asking the council to put a decent lock on the cupboard door so that the upstairs neighbours can’t touch it. I’m also going to look at battery backup for our router as internet is so important to both of us. I’m trying to find a text phone service via broadband but although there used to be one that I used years ago I can’t find it now- the closest thing I’ve found is TexBox, but their app only works with certain companies (none of which are relevant to me) and I couldn’t find an email address to contact them (only a telephone number and a text phone number- which I can’t use). Text phones themselves are expensive and none I’ve seen are good for using in bed so aren’t the ideal solution. If anyone knows of a way of using text relay via internet (either Android app or via computer) then please let me know. Johan finds Skype easier to use but as I have auditory processing issues and speech issues that’s not a good solution for me unless I’m Skyping someone who can also receive the messages in text.