Birthday Medical Review (BMR)

What is the BMR?

A BMR (Birthday Medical Review) is a personalised review of your medications and/or chronic diseases.

We hope that by using this system we can improve the safety and efficiency of our review process thereby reducing the number of visits you need to make and freeing up appointments for you to see us about other things.

How does it work?

We run searches of our records to identify patients who may need a review based on some conditions and the medication on repeat prescription. To evenly distribute the patients we need to review throughout the year we have chosen to base it on your birthday month.

We will contact you in advance to invite you to book a review in the month in which your birthday falls.  We will do this by text message so please make sure you keep your contact details up to date. The message will state which initial appointment you require and the length of that appointment.

Any further appointments required will be booked at each appointment. You shouldn’t require more than 3 appointments and one of these may be by phone. Most people will require 1 or 2 but sometimes we need to repeat tests and this may lead to extra appointments.

Why have I been contacted?

Our searches will have identified you require a review of your medications and/or chronic diseases.

If you don’t think you are due it may be we believe you are overdue or there are items outstanding.

At busy times of the year we may call you early to help to minimise the wait for appointments.

But I don’t take any regular medications?

It could be you have some medications on your repeat prescription list that you are not taking.

Or

It may be that whilst you are not taking any medications/nothing on your repeat medications, there is something else that requires monitoring, e.g. blood pressure (Hypertension), Pre-Diabetes, monitoring after cancer, Coeliac etc. 

It could also be that your phone number is registered to a relative’s notes and we are trying to contact them. The text message should state the forename of the person we are inviting.

How do I book online?

You can use our Accurx portal to book an appointment online:

Accurx Patient Portal

Please select carefully as booking the wrong appointment could result in you needing to come back and we would lose an appointment someone else could have used.  If you can’t book online you can register for this next time you are in surgery. Unfortunately we aren’t able to do this over the phone.

Do I need to bring anything with me?

A number of patients will need their blood pressure checking, if it is raised we will ask you to come back for a repeat or check it at home.

If you already check your blood pressure at home please monitor your readings over a week and bring them in to your appointment (you can download a Home Blood Pressure Diary below).

Some patients, including diabetics will need to bring a sample of the first urine of the day in a white top bottle.

If you use an inhaler please bring them and any associated devices (e.g. spacers) with you.

Please consider bringing your medications, or a list of the ones you are taking, to your appointment.

Home Blood Pressure Diary

Why have I not been contacted?

We will only contact you when you are due or if we think you are overdue (on or around your birthday).

Some patients have prescriptions that don’t need formal review and these will be reviewed as required. An example of this is moisturisers for skin conditions.

There are occasions when we are regularly prescribing medications that are not on repeat. In this case each time the medication is requested it is reviewed by a GP and we will notify you when we want you to attend for review. Please note this message may be on the white page of your prescription.