I was led to believe this was part of some official initiative, but on this occasion have absolutely no idea where that idea came from.
My photographic memory must be having a day off, or a “senior moment”.
Maybe this is another one for the helpline?
Electronic prescriptions - NHS (www.nhs.uk)
Here’s the link to the NHS website - if your surgery doesn’t do this why not ring the Practice Manager and explain how much easier it would be for carers?
Here, we have to telephone the surgery and say which meds are needed or drop off a written repeat prescription request. From experience the former is more likely to be done in one go. The GP then sends the request to the pharmacy. In theory they then contact you to say it is ready to be picked up. They will deliver - but it could be at any time and you have to be in … However common issues are; the surgery 
up and only orders some of the meds requested/ the pharmacy can’t obtain all the meds and gives you IOUs/ its never all ready anymore when you go to collect/ the pharmacy loses some of the meds and claims you have collected them already … / the prescription gets stuck on the ‘spine’ (NHS electrical software) and the pharmacist can’t download it …
Not exactly streamlined then. I usually collect mine as it’s only a mile to the chemist, and they are very good.
Last year I had a query about some medication.
I knew there was one antibiotic I was allergic to and wanted to double check that it wasn’t the one a new doctor had prescribed.
As I’d signed a permission to share form they could look up my medicine history on the doctor’s records, immediately.
I wonder who is responsible for managing this sort of system?
Here the surgery blame the pharmacy and the pharmacy blames the surgery … It used to be lot better. However, the pharmacy we used to use, drastically changed its opening hours, plus another large chemist closed their store. Our old pharmacy had a lovely young pharmacist who knew S and we used to go to collect his meds on a Sunday or mid evening when it was quieter. Now all of them are always packed and you have to queue and wait for ages. There aren’t enough pharmacists nor chemists to cope with the number of people requiring meds. Supply issues don’t help. Drug addicts needing their methadone always get served first as they are likely to cause trouble if they don’t …