IME for things on repeat you can request a repeat by ticking the box on the form and leaving the form at the practice. Some practices will also let you do this on the web, different ones have different systems. None of mine have ever let me do it by phone but it's worth asking - they may also take faxes or emails. My current practice then send the prescription direct to the local chemist, or I can arrange to collect from the surgery if I prefer to get it filled out elsewhere.

But repeats usually have an annual or similar review date, and you have to go in and talk to a doctor and nurse if you're past the review date before they'll issue more repeats.

For things not on repeat I've never tried getting them to re-prescribe over the phone mind.

Yes, the annual review date is what usually bites me: I just don't eat pasta fast enough (and I get enough prescribed in one go) to be able to get many repeat prescriptions without finding I've already hit the "review required" stage. Hence, re-involving a doctor every time.

I'm actively considering solutions to this problem (e.g. pretend I've finished the pasta a couple of times this year, so I can have a few repeats which will put off having to do this again for aaaaages; alternatively, experiment with a pasta-making machine and do my own fresh at home).

Once, when my hay fever medication was up for review, I got a nasal spray with a "medication review required before next prescription" note by it.

When I was running low, I dropped off the repeat prescription form with the tickybox tickied, that note circled and "Please review" scribbled beside it. It came back with "Reviewed — date, doctor's initials" scribbed beside that. I got my new nasal spray.

At least with my surgery, it seems that long-standing patients who are known not to be stupid can fairly easily bend the system in ways that save hassle for all concerned. After all, they don't want to give me an appointment any more than I want to turn up for one. (It doesn't help that the surgery, although within crawling distance of my house, is twenty miles from the office.)

I do my repeat prescriptions through Boots, and they tend to let me have one when I'm over the review period, with instructions to go see the doctor before I get another. I recommend this because when you go in they've counted it all out already and you don't have to hang around for fifteen minutes.

What they aren't set up to do is e-mail me when I'm due for another, so I tend to forget, which breaks the system.

Pasta keeps for years, maybe decades. Get your doctor to prescribe two months' worth; iterate it through Boots for a year; keep it in an airtight box and think of it as your apocalypse stash.