This is a measure that should make things easier for many patients. The text allowing expired prescriptions to be renewed for “medicines and medical devices necessary for the continuation of chronic treatment” was published in Newspaper November 28, 2024. This decree ndeg2024-1070 of November 26, 2024 announced by the Minister of Health and Access to Care during the day of the Order of Pharmacists is part of an objective of continuity of care for patients.
This regulatory development provides that, exceptionally and in order to avoid an interruption of treatment which could be detrimental to the patient's health, the community pharmacist may dispense the necessary medicines and medical devices for a limit of three months in successive one-month deliveries.
A renewal on an “exceptional basis”
The prescription must bear the name of the medication, and the pharmacist must notify the prescriber and the health insurance of the renewal of the latter via a secure messaging service. Excluded from the decree are medications whose prescription period is limited by regulation to 12 weeks, such as hypnotics, anxiolytics or even medical contraceptives.
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A solution to medical deserts?
This entry into force of the measure delights certain professionals such as pharmacists. This new mission enshrines the role of guarantor of the safety and continuity of treatments fulfilled by the pharmacist. In the event of the doctor being unavailable, particularly in medical deserts, patients will thus be able to count on their pharmacist and on the proximity of a pharmacy in order to avoid any interruption of treatment detrimental to their health", the pharmacists' union welcomes in a press release FSPF (Federation of Pharmaceutical Unions of France).
On the contrary, the feeling is not the same when we go to the doctors. “For my chronic polymedicated patients, There is almost no renewal consultation or change in dosage and treatment! The medical situation of our patients is fluid and so are our prescriptions", estimated by the Doctor's Daily Dr Jean-Christophe Nogrette, the deputy general secretary of the general practitioners union MG France.
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