Private Shared Care Agreements for Medication Prescribing and Monitoring 

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WE DO NOT ACCEPT SHARED CARE REQUESTS FROM PRIVATE PROVIDERS (This includes private ADHD or Gender Clinics)  

At Robin Lane Health and Wellbeing Centre we are committed to delivering safe, fair, and high-quality care to all our patients. To ensure we can continue to provide the core services we are funded to deliver, and provide safe prescribing our patients, we have recently reviewed our approach to shared care arrangements.    

As a practice we follow the appropriate BMA guidance.  Presently we are not commissioned for these services and therefore, not required to sign up for private shared care agreements. 

We will not continue prescriptions initiated by private providers (unless care is subsequently taken over by the NHS and it becomes an NHS shared care agreement). 

Our position is based on the following considerations: 

  • Capacity Limitations: General practice is currently under significant pressure, and we do not have the capacity to take on the additional clinical workload associated with private sector prescribing and monitoring. 
  • Quality and Governance Concerns: We are unable to guarantee the quality, clinical governance, or continuity of care provided by private clinics. This creates potential risks and challenges in maintaining safe and consistent care for our patients. 
  • NHS Principles and Policy: Shared care arrangements are designed to function within the NHS framework. Entering into shared care with private providers goes against the NHS Constitution principle of maintaining a clear boundary between NHS and private care. Doing so may raise issues around governance, accountability, and health inequality. 
  • Voluntary Nature of Shared Care: Shared care is not mandatory. Even where agreements exist within the NHS, GP practices have the right to decline participation on clinical or capacity grounds. In such cases, responsibility for ongoing prescribing and patient care remains with the private provider. 

We understand that this may be disappointing to some patients. However, our decision ensures that we maintain safe, equitable, and sustainable care for all those registered with our practice. 

What is Shared Care?  

Shared care is when a hospital or specialist clinic asks a GP practice to take on part of a patient’s prescribing and monitoring after they have been diagnosed and stabilised on treatment.  

Shared care exists across many specialties including rheumatology, gastroenterology, ADHD, and gender dysphoria.  

The specialist remains responsible for the overall care plan and reviews. The GP may agree to prescribe medicines and arrange monitoring tests under the specialist’s guidance.  

A formal shared care agreement sets out the responsibilities of the patient, the specialist, and the GP.  

Important: Shared care is not automatic. GPs are not obliged to enter into any shared care agreement, and patient safety and equitable access remain our top priorities.  

PRIVATE PROVIDERS – Shared Care Agreements 

We will not enter into any new shared care agreements with private providers. 

Patients already receiving medication through a private shared Care Agreement: 

  • If a patient is joining our surgery where their previous GP had signed a SCA with a private provider, it does not automatically follow that our surgery will enter into a similar agreement.  
  • We are aware that historically there may have been shared care agreements that  our practice may have accepted that would not be agreed to now. Our current position is that we will continue to honour those agreements but will be starting a process of reviewing each agreement to ensure they meet current standards.  

NHS Shared Care Agreements  

We will consider shared care requests from NHS clinics, where patients have been fully assessed, diagnosed, and stabilised.  

In order to agree to a shared care request, we will require a written request from the secondary care provider detailing medication regime, monitoring requirements and follow up plan.  

We reserve the right to cease prescribing the agreed medication if at any point monitoring is not completed, the agreed reviews are not carried out, or if any safety concerns arise. We will advise the secondary care provider and patient of our intention to cease prescribing if this is the case. 

We will continue to review this policy if local or national guidance changes.