Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would like to ask a question on section 13. GP surgeries are extremely busy at the moment. They have a huge throughput of patients. When errors are made with prescriptions, the pharmacists pick it up 99.99% of the time. I will give the example of someone with epilepsy. When he or she gets to see a consultant, a prescription will be made after a series of trial and error uses of various medications. The patient and the consultant settle on a particular medication and the consultant writes on the prescription that the medication cannot be substituted for any other generic medicine. That is fine. The patient gets the prescription filled by the pharmacist and off they go. When the patient needs a repeat prescription, he or she goes back to the GP and everything is fine. What happens if, six months down the road, the GP forgets to reiterate on the next repeat prescription script that the medication should not be substituted? Some type of safety net is needed to ensure that a medication which has consistently been used is not substituted all of a sudden if it is not mentioned on the prescription that it is not to be automatically substituted. Some type of safety net is required to double-check that there has not been a change in the prescription.