Template Letters

Template letters for local organisations

DPI’s

You might want to write to your local commissioning group to encourage changes in various aspects of how General Practice is run, in order to reduce the carbon footprint of care. One example is the prioritisation of Dry Powder Inhalers for asthma. Here is a template letter which you can copy and adapt for your own practice to send to your commissioning group.

Pharmacy Over-ordering of medication

Some pharmacies and patients may routinely order as required medications for patients, regardless of whether they need them or not. This is particularly a problem for reliever inhalers, where the default prescription length as 28 days. It is good practice to change this length of prescription to around 180 days for asthma patients, with a limit of 2 inhaler prescriptions before review, as well controlled asthma should mean that a reliever is needed only every few months. Routine over-ordering of reliever inhalers is dangerous because it is difficult to monitor how well controlled your asthma patients are, and can also result in wasteful and dangerous stockpiling of medications at home.

If you think that 3rd party ordering of medications on behalf of patients may be a problem in your area, you may wish to consider talking to your CCG / ICS about it, or you can stop it within your practice, making a plan for vulnerable patients who may need support with ordering. One CCG claims to have saved £2million over 2 years through stopping 3rd party ordering. Here is a template letter that you may wish to use and adapt to your local circumstances.

Feel free to personalise these letters with local information and evidence, which will make them even stronger and more persuasive.