Dispensing List Validation

From time to time NHS Engalnd go through a process of validating the dispensing lists of practices.

NHS England will write to your practice with a list of patients that they think you should not be dispensing to. We would encourage practices to check whether you agree with the list the NHSE provide to you, and challenge any amendments which you disagree with.

The reasons that NHSE have to remove the patients from your dispensing list are

The patient does not live in your "controlled area"

The patient does not live more than 1.6 km from a pharmacy

You have "historic rights" to dispense, but a patient who lives in your practice area, has not moved house, and has joined from a non-dispensing practice who did not have "historic rights"

When you receive the list of patients from NHSE it is worth checking if the patients do not fit into any of these criteria. NHSE uses patients' postcodes to identify where they live, but some postcode areas are quite large. This can lead to innacuracies. For instance NHSE may say that they are not in a controlled area because the postcode is partially in and partially out of your controlled area, but the do live within your controlled area. The postcode boundaries may be less than 1.6km apart, but the pharmacy and the patient's house could be much more than 1.6km.