How do I bulk stop repeats?

The Size of the problem

In our KPIs folder of the Prescribing module, you can see how many patients have current repeats that haven't been issued for more than a year and how many repeats were started more than a year ago but have never been issued:

The Reason it's a problem

It's for each practice to decide, but we recommend bulk stopping these repeats and implementing an internal process to do this every month. 

There are many benefits to doing this, and it will support the adoption of the Prescribing module:

• Patients with repeats that aren't being issued, with review dates before today, may trigger the sending of medication review questionnaires when they're not needed
• Medication monitoring is based on current repeats and isn't limited to whether patients have been having them issued. Repeats not being issued may trigger monitoring invites and messages that aren't needed.
  
• Other warnings and alerts look at current repeats and may be inaccurate if repeats aren't being issued.

The Solution to the problem

Within SystmOne, there is a tool to do this work in bulk. The only downside is that it's not possible to differentiate between different types of medication. Some practices would prefer not to stop unissued repeats for things like hayfever medication or inhalers. However, would you want a receptionist to issue this medication if it hasn't been issued for 12 months? And it doesn't stop patients from requesting the medication. Anyway, its for you to decide and you can set different time frames, e.g. only stop medication not issued in the last 2 years.

Solving the problem

Here's how to do it...

1. Navigate to the bulk stopping repeats tool in SystmOne:
2. Configure the options like this for repeats not issued in the last 12m:
3. Click "Continue" and enter a reason (this will appear on the notes for prescriptions), e.g. "Not issued for >12m"
4. SystmOne suggests printing the list. If you click "Print list" it will create a word document that can be saved rather than printed. Press "Continue" and then "Run" on the last page:
5. If it identifies more than 1000 patients (not uncommon), you'll need to repeat this process the following day. It needs to be the following day so that SystmOne reports can update overnight.
6. Repeat the same process but with this configuration to stop repeats started more than a year ago but never issued: