Online pharmacy prescriptions
Normally in the UK if a patient would like to order for prescription medicine from and online pharmacy they will be required to possess a prescription from a registered doctor.
Prescriptions can also be an NHS prescription or a private prescription and these can be directly posted to a UK online pharmacy after which the medicines will be sent out via recorded delivery.
Online pharmacy in the UK is rapidly growing and expanding thereby it is tightly regulated.
Online private prescription services
There are also a few registered Organisations such as ONLINE DOCTOR which are capable of providing an online prescription service for low costs. The doctors working in these services are able to carry out online consultations and issue the relevant prescriptions.
Prescriptions issued online are normally for those medicines which can be safely supplied without face-to-face interactions with the patient. And because of this there are strict controls and measures to be followed on how these private online consultations are administered.
The prescriptions that these online doctors issue are sent securely to a partner online pharmacy in the UK for postage and shipping.
The Online doctors and pharmacies are registered fully with the GMC and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain respectively.
Cost of medicine online
In the UK it is cheaper to make use of an online prescription service instead of a straight forward online pharmacy site. This is because some of the medicines supplied by pharmacies are branded products whereas online doctors can provide lower cost generic equivalents which are proven to be equally as effective.
Both branded and generic medicines supplied from registered UK online pharmacies are guaranteed to be genuine.
The cost of a prescription medicine online depends on how much the doctors charge for the consultation and how much the relevant pharmacy charges for supply and delivery of the medicine.
ONLINE DOCTOR is competitive in both areas as no other surcharges are included. Note that Prices on the ONLINE DOCTOR website include consultation and prescriptions fees as well as medicine costs.
Online medicine
MHRA (Medicine and Health Products Regulatory Authority) is responsible for controlling the way prescription and non-prescription medicines are promoted by online pharmacies in the UK.Websites supplying medicine must behave responsibly and avoid making false claims. Only appropriate information must be offered to patients/customers.
The future of online pharmacy in the UK
At the moment only few online pharmacies provide private prescription services. In the coming years, as demand for medicine on the internet is predicted to increase, and more consultation services provided by doctors become regulated, online pharmacy will become routine as patients like the convenience and the lower cost of medicines online.
Overseas online pharmacy website
There are numerous online pharmacy sites running overseas but these often supply medicines which do not conform to UK standards and may be fake medicines. There is no guarantee medicine supplied from overseas pharmacies is genuine or appropriate.
