Dr L was working three days a week as a maternity locum at a busy medical practice. Every day she was asked to manage the acute prescription requests, even though she knew only a few of the patients and there were two full-time GP partners.
She was asked to prescribe Diazepam for a patient she had never met and noted that the patient had not been reviewed in the last year. She felt it might be unsafe to issue Diazepam in these circumstances and she asked the senior partner, Dr M, to review the request as he knew the patient best. The next day the same prescription request appeared on her screen. She sent a message to the receptionists to let them know she had asked Dr M to deal with this request.
On the third day she was called in to see Mr F, the practice manager. The patient had run out of Diazepam and became angry with the receptionists at the front desk when they told him the prescription wasn’t ready. Mr F ordered Dr L to issue the prescription. Dr L declined to do so and Mr F started shouting, stating he would discuss the incident with the partners.