To think Pharmacies shouldn't shut for lunch anymore

I'm a pharmacist, and I'm not permitted to take a break for this reason. Its unfair

I'm a pharmacist, and I'm not permitted to take a break for this reason. Its unfair

So you want a highly qualified health care professional to be available to you for nine or ten hours continually without a break, to have your prescription ready as soon as you approach the counter, to have antibiotic syrups available in any flavour your child currently fancies....
Please be real

I have wondered about this - the pharmacist must be present for prescriptions, I think. The local Boots had its pharmacy closed the day before my DH had a cardiac arrest. I had meant to ask for some advice because he had had indigestion since the previous night, and a pain in his arm (he frequently had indigestion, and had a left shoulder injury that often gave him pain all down his arm, so I had no rational reason to worry). Had I asked would they at least have said dial 111? The herbal remedy shop I went to for turmeric (DH wanted this) neither asked questions nor suggested anything - a pharmacy might have? I doubt it would have made a difference - he had a cardiac arrest when I was out of the room for a few minutes, caused by a blood clot - the silent killer aka widow-maker. DD has said her uncle (a doctor) thought survival unlikely even if it had happened in hospital (and sadly, while DH was still being treated, another patient had just this happen - we could hear the crash team all too well from DH's side-ward).

We has a high St shop for 30 years. When we first opened, half day closing was still a thing, and just coming to an end, but a good number of long established shops still closed at 12.00 on Thursdays. We were young and enthusiastic, so opened all hours we could, but Thursday afternoons remained the quietest trading time for most of the time we traded. Over the years opening hours expanded. First late nights, then an extra 30 mins, from 5.30 till 6.00, then Sundays. We opened all the extra hours, but it didn't increase our business, just increased our costs. We were always amused that the people who banged on about it being a 24 hour business day usually worked Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, and usually finishing early on Fridays. As others have said the Pharmacist has to be on duty to dispense drugs. Work round it to let them have a lunch break.

The pharmacy at our local surgery has a pick up thingie, a bit like a vending machine, outside. You get send a code by email or text, pop it in, and after some shuffling accompanied by robot noises, you can push open the little window and pick up your prescription. It's great, saves me from having to get to the pharmacy between the end of my work day and their's.

Thing is they might not have time on their hands. And if the pharmacy is next door to the drs I think they can be forgiven for assuming they can pick up their prescription in the same trip. I agree though once it's explained the pharmacist is on lunch people should be more understanding

Unfortunately some people think pharmacy is like McDonald's! "My doctor sent my prescription a couple ofi minutes ago. And IV come to collect it"...that's what they hear.."the pharmacist on a break" is not what they want to hear as it upsets them. It's a bit sad when people don't have patience while a pharmacist takes a break which is by law expected. Especially when some of these people have time on their hands anyways . Some people need to learn a bit of patience.

In our area of the U.K. there are companies that own pharmacies in several towns and, during the issues over the past couple of years with there not being enough pharmacists to cover all the branches, they have been having to cover 2 branches a day so having to travel between the 2 on their break. This means some communities only have access to the single pharmacy in their town for 4 hours either morning or afternoon and the opposite the next day - not great if you don’t drive and your prescription is needed urgently but it’s given to you by the Dr at 1.05pm when the pharmacy has just shut till 2pm tomorrow. Oh, and the dispensary in the surgery is not allowed to deal with the scripts for patients whose address is within 2 miles of the surgery so can’t help even if they are open because their licence doesn’t allow it so they aren’t ’in competition’ with the community pharmacy!

The pharmacist has half an hour for lunch per six hours of a shift, and one 15-minute break. He or she can be interrupted in an emergency.

There's the distinction. A pharmacist here is perfectly entitled to be unavailable during their unpaid break time, and rightly so.

The government does not pay enough to employ a second pharmacist to cover lunchtimes. They barely pay enough to properly cover the first pharmacist considering the responsibility of the professional services and having to manage a business and make profits for the owner.

We are a community pharmacy. We have many, many customers who tried the online route, but then came to us for the personal service.

Unfortunately what is happening (living the dream/nightmare right now) is that high street pharmacies are closing. Online pharmacies are skimming off the easy customers... the ones with the same dose of the same medication every month... no complications. We are picking up the rest. The complex in and out of hospital customers, end of life care, urgent needs like antibiotics. Advice... we have so much time spent advising our own customers, we have had to instigate appointments- but still those who have chosen to go online for medication expect to be seen instantly by a pharmacist they have no relationship with...

We are dinosaurs who shut for lunch... extinction is a lonnnnnnng way off. Our customer base for prescriptions alone is growing by 20 to 30 a week. (Which is unsustainable long term as we have limited space and limited staff). These are customers with complex needs, not just a 5 minute dispensing job.

It is owned by a US company. My point is that if they could do the same here as in the US and make a profit they would. That is obviously not the case as in the UK they have been cutting the hours of shops and also shutting them.

Pharmacy stores in this country are still stuck in the 19th century. Just waiting for online pharmacies to come and decimate them. If you’re a dinosaur, you will eventually become extinct.

We had one across the street from us, shut at lunch for an hour... why? there was the Pharmacist and an assistant, they both had lunch at the same time as it was unsafe to have just one member of staff working.

It was a Lloyds, owned by USA private equity firm, premises sold off for housing.

The UK allowed this sale to foreign private equity, PE rarely improves CS, their business model is to break up and sell for profit.

There are laws here too.

The pharmacist has half an hour for lunch per six hours of a shift, and one 15-minute break. He or she can be interrupted in an emergency. When the pharmacist is at lunch, prescriptions that have been previously filled and verified can be dispensed, and the techs can continue filling prescriptions, which the pharmacist will verify after the lunch break.

If you get a call (automated) to say your prescription is ready, or if you call to inquire, the recorded voice states the lunch time for the pharmacist, so if you have questions, you are welcome to wait.

Technically, Walgreens is a subsidiary of Walgreens Boots Alliance. The structure isn't a clear-cut X owns Y, and operations vary according to market.

The GPhC set the rules in Pharmacies and their rules state that Pharmacies cannot operate without a responsible pharmacist signed in. They sign out at lunch time for 1 hour. Some Pharmacies are allowed to stay open to sell general retail stock during that time, others are not. This comes from GPhC. It's nothing to do with retailers or individual Pharmacists. We have 5 Pharmacies in ours small town. 4 of them have 1 pharmacist each and close for 1 hour over lunch time. The 5th is an independent Pharmacy who has 3 Pharmacists on site so can stagger meal times and not close for lunch.

The pharmacist won't be getting much of a break if he is eating lunch on the premises so that he can constantly be interrupted. We have laws about breaks in the UK.

If the US model is so fantastic I wonder why it hasn't been adopted by Boots given that it is actually owned by the US company Walgreens.

That makes sense. You're far too sensible to be on Mumsnet, be gone 😁
You're supposed to rant and rage and wotnot

Why wouldn't they need to be seen between 1 and 2?

As I said, pharmacies here don't close for a lunch hour, even the local independent one. The pharmacist takes his or her lunch on the premises. There's always a queue for prescriptions, and they do vaccinations too - flu, shingles, pneumonia, covid. They also have a drive-through lane for prescriptions.

The local chains are open from either 6am to 11pm or 7am to midnight. There's one a few miles away that is open 24 hours, even on Christmas Day. It's very handy for emergency prescriptions.

The chain pharmacies sell all sorts of other stuff on top of prescriptions - makeup, sanpro, cards, toiletries, frozen groceries, beer, liquor, basic dry goods, candy, seasonal tat, hair care stuff, school and office supplies, otc medications and small medical devices like blood test strips, Zimmer frames, various bandages, vitamin supplements, etc. They also take passport photos, and you can print out your digital photos.

If you go to the emergency room here you can be prepared to pay for your visit.

It doesn't mean that a good chunk of their income comes from elsewhere. Why do you think pharmacies are reducing their hours and closing everywhere! I don't need to be on the board of Boots to know this. It is in the news everywhere that pharmacies (not just Boots) are shutting because of funding cuts. Staff shortages are also a problem.

@wombat15 if Boots are paid so little by the nhs, then clearly a big chunk of their income is coming from somewhere else - likely all the other stuff they sell! So you'd think it would make sense to stay open during normal business hours so they can continue to sell these other products. If they weren't making good money from outside the dispensing business, they wouldn't bother with it.

The dispensing side of pharmacies were busy during Covid, but people were not shopping as they normally did in the rest of the store. In my town we had to wait outside, only 2 people were allowed in at a time, there was no browsing.
I certainly don't believe it cost my local Boots as much to operate as they would have spent in normal times. And of course most of us were shopping online.

Working in a pharmacy in the past doesn't make you a retail expert either. Unless you're secretly Mary Portas or on the board at Boots, in which case I apologise unreservedly and bow to your greater knowledge We are all just giving our opinions - mine is that I don't think this policy will benefit them in the long run. Time will tell.

In my local Boots the other day which doesn't close for lunch the pharmacist came back with his dinner - which he had to try and eat in the photo booth - and was immediately pulled away from it to deal with problems.

It's not very fair.

Pharmacies were actually open and very busy during lockdown so probably didn't "enjoy a reduction in operating costs" or provide minimal service. I worked in a pharmacy long before internet and even then the shops were very quiet during lunch time. Selling shampoo to people in the lunchbreak wasn't their main business then and certainly wouldn't be now. They are in financial trouble because they are paid very little for the services they do for the NHS, not because people are buying shampoo from the supermarket. That was never their main income,

You say you are not a retail expert and yet seem to think you know more about running pharmacies than the huge companies that have managed them for years. It's a bit laughable,

"The main customer base of Pharmacies will be those receiving prescriptions and the majority of those people will not be working".

Not sure about this.

Re, whether they've worked out whether they lose money by staying open, I think many businesses enjoyed the reduction in operating costs during Covid and want to continue prividing minimal physical service now. But we aren't in lockdown and forced to shop online and I think that ultimately businesses which don't have a strong usp will suffer from reducing their physical presence on high streets. When you can buy shampoo and make up anywhere, why would you go to a specific shop that isn't making the experience attractive or convenient for you? I know that when Boots is shut I walk a few shops down the street and go to Savers or Superdrug!
So yes, it might be cheaper for them now but it costs them passing trade and customer loyalty in the long run and ultimately this will reduce their profits.

Or it could be a cynical move to close shops and gradually manipulate staff out, without having to pay redundancy?

Idk, I'm not a retail expert, just someone who would quite like high street shops to be open, reasonably well stocked and ideally clean. I much prefer physical shops to online and dislike feeling pushed into online shopping. I know that if it goes that way, I probably won't buy toiletries on one website, then other things elsewhere, I'm likely to just go to the supermarket and get the whole lot or do an Amazon order.