Information for community pharmacists

Image-based prescriptions​

From 17 April 2020, community pharmacists in NSW can dispense a prescription for most medicines using an image of the prescription received from a medical practitioner or a nurse practitioner by email or fax, rather than requiring a paper prescription.

This temporary measure will facilitate telehealth consultations and access to medicines during the COVID-19 response. This measure is in place until 29 September 2021.​

• Prescriber issues prescription, signed by hand
• Prescriber emails or faxes image-based prescription to patient’s pharmacy of choice
• Pharmacist dispenses prescription, prints a copy, and endorses appropriately
• Pharmacist arranges delivery or pick up by patient, carer or patient’s other agent
• Pharmacist keeps any repeats and copy of prescription for two years

What you need to know

• Image-based prescriptions cannot be prescribed or dispensed for Schedule 4 Appendix D medicines (e.g. benzodiazepines) or Schedule 8 medicines (e.g. opioids).
• An image-based prescription must be sent directly to the pharmacy by email or fax.
• You cannot dispense a prescription from an email, photo or text message presented by a patient. 
• You cannot send an image-based prescription to another pharmacy for dispensing. Repeats can be issued from an image-based prescription.
• All repeats must be supplied and held in the same pharmacy as the original supply.​