How long a prescription stays valid in Malta

What sets the validity period

Three things decide how long a prescription can still be used. The first is the kind of prescription it is: a single supply, a repeatable prescription, and a prescription for a medicine in a controlled group are not treated alike anywhere in Europe. The second is what the prescriber actually wrote: a date of issue, and where applicable a note limiting the period, the number of repeats or the interval between them. The third is the scheme: a government-funded supply follows the rules of that scheme, while a private prescription follows the rules that apply to private dispensing.

For a prescription issued in another Member State there is one field you can always rely on being there: the date of issue is a required element of the Annex to Commission Implementing Directive 2012/52/EU. That date is the anchor from which any period is counted, which is why a document with the date missing or illegible tends to stop at the counter.

Because the answer depends on those three inputs, the only reliable way to find your own answer is to ask the pharmacy that will dispense it, or the prescriber who wrote it. Both can tell you in one sentence; a general figure found online can be wrong for your particular document and, if you rely on it, the discovery comes at the worst moment.

Where to look on your own prescription

Start with the date of issue. On a cross-border prescription it is one of the mandatory fields, printed alongside the prescriber's details. On a Maltese form it is written in the place provided for it.

Then look for anything the prescriber added by hand or in the notes: a validity limit, a number of supplies, an instruction that the medicine is to be dispensed in instalments, or a date before which the next supply should not be made. Those notes bind the pharmacist and they override any general expectation you may have.

Finally, check the medicine details themselves: strength, pharmaceutical form, quantity and dosage regimen. A prescription that has not expired can still be unusable if one of those fields is missing, because the pharmacist has nothing to dispense against. If you are unsure what you are looking at, photograph the document and take it to a pharmacy before you need the medicine; reading it early costs nothing.

How repeats are counted

A repeatable prescription authorises more than one supply of the same medicine. The number of supplies, and sometimes the interval between them, comes from the prescriber, not from the patient and not from the pharmacy.

Each supply is recorded, so the pharmacy can see how many remain. When they are used up, the prescription has done its work, even if the date on it still looks recent. That is the point at which people are most often caught out: they assume the date governs everything, when the count of supplies has run out first.

A pharmacy cannot add repeats to a prescription, and cannot convert a single supply into a repeatable one. Where the quantity you are given is smaller than the whole prescription, ask explicitly how many supplies are left and note the answer. Keeping a photograph of the prescription with the dates of each supply written on it turns this into a thirty-second check next time.

What a pharmacy cannot do once the period has passed

A pharmacy cannot extend an expired prescription on its own. It cannot change the strength, the form or the quantity, and it cannot substitute a different active substance. Those decisions belong to the prescriber.

What a pharmacist can sometimes do is contact the prescriber, or advise you on what to do in the meantime. Substitution between products containing the same active substance is a separate question, governed by the rules the pharmacist works under and by what is authorised in Malta; the Medicines Authority is the body that authorises medicines here. Ask rather than assume, and ask before the last tablet.

Once the validity period has passed, a fresh medical assessment is needed before the medicine can be supplied again. That is not an administrative formality: the point of the period is that treatment is reviewed at intervals, and for many long-term medicines the review is the safety mechanism rather than the prescription itself.

What to do when a prescription expires in the middle of a treatment

First, do not simply stop a long-term medicine because the paper ran out. Several common treatments should not be interrupted abruptly, and some should not be stopped without a plan at all. If you are close to your last dose, say so when you make contact, because it changes what is advised.

Second, contact the person who has been prescribing for you. For a government-funded medicine that is the route through your POYC pharmacy or health centre. For a private treatment it is whoever wrote the last prescription.

Third, if your treatment is already established and you need it continued rather than reviewed from scratch, our /repeat-prescription/ page sets out what a doctor needs in order to assess the request: the active substance, the strength, how long you have been taking it, your recent test results and any side effects. Our /online-doctor/ page explains the boundaries of what an assessment on paper can cover. A first diagnosis, a dose change or new symptoms need a doctor who can examine you and order tests.

Government-funded medicines follow their own arrangements

If your medicine comes through the Government Formulary List and the POYC scheme, the rules of that scheme decide how long an entitlement runs, how often a supply is made and what has to be renewed and when. Those arrangements are set by the Ministry for Health, not by the pharmacy and not by us.

The practical consequence is that a question about a government-funded medicine has to be asked in the scheme, at your POYC pharmacy or health centre. Nothing about a private cross-border prescription changes an entitlement, adds to it or speeds it up.

It is worth separating the two tracks in your own mind. A private prescription is useful for closing a gap or for a treatment outside the scheme; the scheme is where a long-term, listed medicine belongs. Mixing them up is the reason people sometimes pay privately for something they were already entitled to receive.

What we issue, and what we do not do

How we work: you fill in a medical questionnaire and a doctor reads your answers and the documents you attach. There is no video consultation, no telephone consultation and no live chat. If the doctor decides a prescription is appropriate, you receive a PDF prescription by e-mail, drawn up to the Annex of Commission Implementing Directive 2012/52/EU. You print it or open it on your phone and bring it to a pharmacy in Malta together with photo identification.

Two things about the document are worth stating plainly. The doctor is registered in Poland and is not registered with the Medical Council of Malta, which keeps the mandatory register of doctors here. The prescription is therefore a private cross-border document: it is not entered in any Maltese state health record, it does not appear in myHealth, and it is not part of the Government Formulary List or the POYC scheme. You pay for the medicine yourself at the pharmacy.

We do not prescribe benzodiazepines, Z-drug hypnotics, opioids, stimulants or gabapentinoids. Narcotic and psychotropic substances are excluded from cross-border prescriptions under Article 11(6) of Directive 2011/24/EU, and a first diagnosis, an antibiotic for a new infection or anything that needs an examination belongs with a doctor who can examine you in Malta.

A repeat prescription request costs 24,90 €, contraception 24,90 € and weight loss treatment 29,90 €; priority handling is an additional 9,90 €. The fee covers the medical assessment of your answers by a doctor, not the issuing of a document. If the doctor declines on medical or legal grounds, the fee is refunded. If the doctor asks you for documentation, you have at least 7 days to provide it and we will remind you before the deadline; if the consultation cannot be completed, we refund the full amount.