Amending, locking and cancelling a prescription

Amending, locking and cancelling a prescription

The electronic prescription will bring changes to amending and cancelling procedures of prescriptions. This information is also stored in the Prescription Centre. In a fault situation, it is possible to lock a prescription, and this also improves patient security.

Amendment and locking

A person providing treatment and prescriptions may amend a patient's prescription, for example its dosage instructions. All prescriptions with undispensed drugs may be amended. However, the patient details or those of the prescriber cannot be altered. For example, if a prescription has been issued under an incorrect ID number, the prescription must be cancelled and a new one issued in its place. Amendments are verified with an electronic signature.

Pharmacies may make technical corrections independently as long as they don’t alter the contents of the prescription. Pharmacies may also lock a prescription and wait for the prescriber to correct it.

The lock-down is automatically cancelled once the prescription is corrected. The prescriber can also cancel the lock-down, if there is nothing to correct in the prescription.

Cancelling

A person providing treatment and prescriptions can cancel a patient's prescription, for example if the medication is changed or discontinued. The cancellation may concern both prescriptions issued in his own unit or elsewhere. A cancellation must always be accompanied by a reason, which can be either treatment-related, technical, or caused by the patient.

Treatment-related cancellation is always done in mutual understanding with the patient.

If a patient has deliberately given false information or forced a prescriber to issue an electronic prescription, the latter may cancel the prescription without the patient's consent.

The prescriber can also cancel a prescription issued for a wrong person without the patient's consent. The cancellation is made for a technical reason and not for a treatment-related 

The Prescription Centre automatically cancels lapsed prescriptions and those of deceased persons daily.

Last updated 20.12.2019