You may be prescribed a medicine by a hospital specialist and later be asked to have your ongoing prescriptions and monitoring transferred to your GP practice. This is known as a shared care agreement.
Shared care is a voluntary arrangement between the specialist, the GP practice and the patient. It can only be accepted where there is a clear and agreed clinical protocol, responsibilities are properly defined, and the Practice is satisfied that the prescribing and monitoring can be undertaken safely.
What is changing?
Following national guidance from the British Medical Association (BMA), supported locally by Derby and Derbyshire Local Medical Committee (DDLMC), GP practices are being advised to review new requests for shared care and may decline requests where the arrangements are not appropriately resourced or where the Practice does not believe it can safely take responsibility for the additional prescribing and monitoring.
Mickleover Medical Centre will continue to consider shared care requests in accordance with the agreed Derbyshire arrangements. However, in line with current BMA and local LMC guidance, the Practice may decline new shared care requests where the arrangements are not appropriately resourced, where the correct shared care process has not been followed, or where there is no agreed Derbyshire shared care arrangement in place.
Shared care arrangements for certain disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) are covered by a separately funded Derbyshire service and will continue to be considered under those existing arrangements.
This may mean that, for some medicines, your specialist or hospital team will need to continue prescribing and monitoring your treatment rather than transferring this responsibility to the Practice.
What about my existing shared care medication?
If we have already formally accepted a shared care agreement for you, your current arrangements will continue. Please continue to request your medication and attend any required blood tests or monitoring as usual.
The current action relates to new shared care requests and does not mean that existing patients will suddenly have their medication stopped.
What happens if the Practice declines a new request?
If we are unable to accept a shared care request, we will inform the specialist team responsible for your treatment. Responsibility for prescribing and monitoring remains with the specialist until a shared care arrangement has been formally accepted by the Practice.
Declining a shared care request does not mean that we are declining your treatment or asking you to stop taking your medication. It means that responsibility for prescribing and monitoring will remain with the specialist service responsible for your treatment.
We appreciate that this may sometimes be frustrating for patients. However, accepting shared care involves taking clinical responsibility for specialist medicines, including prescribing, reviewing blood results, arranging monitoring and responding to potential side effects. We must therefore be satisfied that appropriate arrangements and resources are in place before accepting that responsibility.
What do I need to do?
Most patients do not need to do anything and should not contact the Practice simply to ask whether their medication is affected by these changes.
If you already receive your medication from the Practice under an existing shared care agreement, you do not need to contact us about these changes. Your existing arrangement will continue, so please order your medication and attend any required monitoring appointments in the usual way.
If a hospital or specialist has recently started you on a medicine and has told you that your GP will take over prescribing, please be aware that the transfer does not take place automatically. The specialist must send the appropriate shared care request to the Practice, which we will review before deciding whether we can accept responsibility for your prescribing and monitoring.
You do not need to contact the Practice to check whether we have received or accepted a new shared care request. We will contact you if we need any information from you or if there is anything you need to do.
Until a shared care arrangement has been formally accepted by the Practice, prescribing and monitoring remain the responsibility of the specialist service.
If you are approaching the end of the medication supplied by your specialist and the Practice has not confirmed that we have taken over prescribing, please contact your specialist team in the first instance and do not allow your medication to run out.
If the Practice is unable to accept the shared care request, we will notify the specialist service so that they can continue to make appropriate arrangements for your prescribing and monitoring. Our priority remains ensuring that medicines are prescribed and monitored safely and appropriately, while maintaining safe care for all of our registered patients.
Updated September 2026
Mickleover Medical Centre