"Automatic Repeat prescriptions"

Not for the first time, I have been chasing up a repeat prescription, because the one person who doesn't know what is happening, is the patient.  I had lost my repeat prescription form, so wrote to my surgery asking for a prescription, enclosing a stamped addressed envelope, so that it could be sent to me. 

Because my record was set up to send prescriptions to a local pharmacy, this was done electronically, rather than using my envelope to send a paper copy back to me.

Had I not called the surgery to check progress, it is possible that the prescription would have been returned to them, as I hadn't collected my medication within two weeks.

I had previously used the pharmacy's automatic renew system, but because I never knew when the prescription was sent to the surgery, or returned to the pharmacy to be made up, I decided to take back a little more control.

Could a text notification be added to this service? A simple message telling the patient that their prescription is ready, and needs to be collected by a certain date would, if my own experience is typical, save a lot of time, phone calls and record checking.

I hope that this is a useful suggestion.