Changing your nominated pharmacy when you move house

If you're on a repeat prescription, your GP surgery sends it electronically to one pharmacy — the one you've nominated, or in NHS terms "chosen". Moving house and registering with a new GP surgery is a different action entirely, and it does nothing to that setting. NHS England's standards for pharmacy nominations say they should only be changed or removed at the patient's request, so the pharmacy you nominated near your old address carries on receiving your prescriptions until you change it — which is how a repeat prescription ends up sitting at a pharmacy you've already moved away from.

How to change it

This describes the system in England — the NHS App and the Electronic Prescription Service. If you're registered with a GP in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, ask your new pharmacy or GP surgery how it works there.

1. 1

   In the NHS App

   Go to Prescriptions, then Your chosen pharmacy, then select Change your chosen pharmacy. You can also do it by logging in to the NHS website. The app may not let you change it if your GP surgery dispenses your medicines itself — ask the surgery instead.

2. 2

   At any pharmacy

   NHS England's nomination standards say you can ask for a nomination to be set, changed or removed at any pharmacy that uses electronic prescriptions — useful if you'd rather not use the app, or don't have it.

3. 3

   Through your GP surgery

   The GP practice you're registered with can also set or change it. If you want to remove a nomination outright rather than change it, the NHS App can't do that — ask your GP surgery or a pharmacy.

Two things worth checking at the same time

• Electronic repeat dispensing (eRD). If your GP sends a series of repeat prescriptions to your pharmacy in one go, NHS England's guidance says the best time to change your nomination is soon after you've collected your last repeat — removing it part-way through can mean going back to your GP for a new prescription. Ask your GP or pharmacist if you're not sure whether you're on it.
• Online-only pharmacies. If you use one of these rather than a high-street pharmacy, you can't choose it through the NHS App's nomination screen — the NHS says you register with the online pharmacy through its website or contact it directly instead.

This sits alongside GP change of address when moving house — registering with a new surgery is the bigger of the two tasks, but it's this smaller, easy-to-forget one that actually determines whether your next repeat prescription turns up somewhere you can collect it.

MovePlan's dated plan includes registering with a new GP and drafts a letter to the new surgery; the pharmacy nomination isn't a separate task on it, so do it at the same time. The dated plan is free; the letters are £14.99 once, for six months.