Create and manage medication orders
Where: profile → Medicines → New medication order.
Who: care.health.view and care.health.medication.manage, with the MAR feature on.
A medication order records one medicine as prescribed. The medication round uses the orders to show which doses are due.
Have the prescription in front of you, and enter exactly what it says.
Scheduled or as needed?
| Kind | Example | You enter |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled | Metformin 500 mg at 08:00 and 18:00 | Times (24-hour, comma separated) |
| As needed (PRN) | Paracetamol for pain, at most 4 in 24 h, 4 h apart | Give when, Maximum doses per 24 hours, Minimum minutes between doses |
Create a scheduled order
| Field | What to enter | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine | Name of the medicine | Metformin |
| Strength | Strength per unit | 500 mg |
| Form | Tablet, liquid, cream … | Tablet |
| Dose | How much each time | 1 tablet |
| Route | Oral, Sublingual, Buccal, Topical, Transdermal, Inhaled, Nasal, Eye, Ear, Rectal, Vaginal, Subcutaneous, Intramuscular, Intravenous, Enteral tube or Other | Oral |
| Times (24-hour, comma separated) | 1 to 12 different times a day, HH:mm | 08:00, 18:00 |
| Instructions | From the prescription | With breakfast and evening meal |
| Prescriber | Who prescribed it | Dr A. Patel |
| Start, End | First and last day, both included. Leave End empty if ongoing. | 06/11/2026, (empty) |
| Controlled drug (needs a witness) | Tick for controlled drugs | Not ticked |
Select Create order. It appears with status Active, and its doses appear on the round from the start date.
Times examples:
| Instruction | Times |
|---|---|
| Once a day, morning | 08:00 |
| Twice a day | 08:00, 18:00 |
| Three times a day with meals | 08:00, 13:00, 18:00 |
| Four times a day | 08:00, 12:00, 16:00, 22:00 |
| Rule | Message |
|---|---|
| HH:mm format | "Dose times use 24-hour HH:mm, e.g. 08:00: 8am" |
| No repeats | "Dose time 08:00 is listed twice" |
| 1 to 12 times | "A scheduled order needs at least one dose time" / "At most 12 dose times per day" |
| End not before start | "An order cannot end before it starts" |
| Name and dose needed | "A medicine name and dose are required" |
Times are local to the home (its facility time zone). Weekly and reducing (tapering) schedules aren't supported.
Create an as-needed (PRN) order
Tick As needed (PRN). The Times field is replaced by:
| Field | What to enter | Example | Rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| Give when | When it may be given | For pain or temperature over 38°C | Required |
| Maximum doses per 24 hours | The limit | 4 | 1 to 24 |
| Minimum minutes between doses | The gap | 240 | Optional; 1 to 1440 |
Example: Paracetamol · 500 mg · Tablet · Dose "2 tablets" · Oral · PRN · Give when "Pain" · max 4 · 240 minutes.
The allergy check
Create order stays disabled until you tick the acknowledgement.
Change the order's status
| Button | Use it when | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Hold | Pause temporarily; no doses are due while held | 3 days before an operation |
| Resume | Restart a held order | After the operation |
| Stop | End it early; asks "Why is this order being stopped?" | GP stopped it: side effects |
| Complete | The course has finished | 7-day antibiotic course done |
Stopped and completed orders can't be restarted. Create a new order instead.
Change a dose or time: stop and replace
Order details can never be edited, so the record always shows which instruction each dose was given under.
- Stop the old order, for example "Dose increased by Dr Patel".
- Create the new order with the new details.
- In Replaces (stopped order), pick the old one.
| Rule | Message |
|---|---|
| The old order must be stopped first | "Stop the order being replaced first" |
| It must be this person's order | "The replaced order is not this person's" |
Reading the orders table
Columns: Medicine, From, To, Prescriber, Status (with a Controlled tag), and the action buttons. Below it is the 7-day MAR chart.