Keep regular medicines and care within reach

If a pharmacy visit, care appointment or equipment delivery became difficult, what would you need help arranging? Start with the care you already receive. You do not need to turn a general preparedness plan into a detailed medical record.

Keep a practical contact list for your pharmacy, GP practice, care team and equipment supplier as relevant. Discuss with anyone helping you where essential information is kept and what they are authorised to do. The person receiving care should be part of those decisions wherever possible.

1. Find out how your usual practice accepts repeat requests and how long your pharmacy needs to prepare them. Use that process before you run out, including around holidays or travel.
2. Check that a request has reached the right place and find out when it can be collected. Ordering and having medicine ready are separate stages.
3. If collection is difficult, ask the pharmacy what help is available. If someone else will collect for you, check the consent and identification arrangements, especially for controlled medicines.
4. Order what you need through the agreed routine. NHS inform advises against ordering repeat medicines you no longer take; ask your pharmacist or prescriber to resolve changes or confusion.

Contact your usual pharmacy or GP practice promptly and explain which prescribed medicine is involved and when your next dose is due. An emergency supply may be possible, but it depends on the medicine and circumstances; it is not guaranteed.

In England, NHS guidance includes the NHS 111 online emergency-prescription service for some repeat medicines when you have completely run out, alongside pharmacy and GP options. In Scotland, NHS inform directs people to their community pharmacist or GP and its medicines-access guidance.

In Wales, NHS 111 Wales explains how to find an open pharmacy and seek an emergency supply, subject to the pharmacist’s assessment. In Northern Ireland, nidirect advises contacting a community pharmacist about supply problems, with the prescriber involved where needed. Check local opening and out-of-hours arrangements rather than assuming an England-only online service covers your address.

For equipment that depends on electricity, water or a working phone connection, ask the equipment provider and clinical team what to do if that service fails. Include how to contact them and who can help if you cannot carry out the plan alone.

Write down the agreed next action, not a guess about how long equipment might last. If support needs change, revisit the arrangement with the people providing care. A neighbour's equipment or backup setup may be entirely different from yours.

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• You know the repeat-ordering and collection arrangements for your usual care.
• Essential professional contacts are accessible to you and, with your agreement, someone who helps you.
• Any equipment-dependent care has an agreed interruption plan rather than an assumed backup.
• Questions about treatment, storage or a changed prescription have gone to the appropriate professional.

The wider household plan can record who to contact and where agreed instructions are kept. It need not copy diagnoses or every medicine into a list shared with everyone. Read the planning guide to connect support arrangements with everyday contact and travel plans.