What the hell is going on with pharmacies

[thinkponk48]

There are three pharmacies in my town. All three have restricted opening hours. I stood in line for 25 min a few days ago to get a prescription filled. I was told it had to be ordered and pick it up today. Got there Today and pharmacy closed!!!!

Are companies not paying properly or are we suddenly short of pharmacists

Im not even talking about not being able to get certain drugs I understand supply chain issues but I don't understand the staffing issues. Surely this is big chains cutting costs

All the shops are open 9-5. 9-6 whatever but often no pharmacist so the best you can get is a off the shelf medication/ toiletries. Very annoying when you need medication and you have to go to loads of shops trying to get it

DD's pharmacy always has a pharmacist. They have to check the prescriptions.

It's definitely not worse for banks.

You can report pharmacy closures, the pharmacists union has a tool:

www.the-pda.org/pda-launch-on-line-reporting-tool-to-gather-data-on-pharmacy-closures/

Closure is a breach of contract, they can be fined for it.

Thank you. Good to know

Oh course they do but if they can't get a pharmacist, that's why so many close!

I work in a Pharmacy and we close every day for 1 hour for lunch because the pharmacist works 9-8 and needs it obviously. The amount of abuse we get for this is insane. The amount of people who pop on at 1259 expecting to be served is crazy and then throughout the whole hour, one of the dispensers has to man the counter and this is when we try and get the delivery put away but it's nigh on impossible as we have countless people coming in asking for their prescriptions. Not forgetting the abuse we get when items out of stock, or their prescription hasn't come from the surgery yet!!!

It really is a thankless job on shit money. I'll not be surprised if it all goes online within the next 10 years.

Being a community pharmacist is currently very stressful. We are being expected to work with one or two members of staff, often untrained or very poorly trained. The support staff are often on minium wage and inorder to cover shortages some people have been hired when they shouldn't have (often not interested, poor work ethic).Working in a pharmacy is simply not the same as working in another retail shop, mistakes made are dangerous and support staff need time to learn not be thrown in the deep end. To learn they need a regular pharmacist not different ones each day.

The main issue is that employers are still paying wages of years gone by. I've been offered a job at £19 an hour working in a community pharmacy as a manager. I wouldn't be given extra pay for my management duties nor time to complete them alongside being an actual pharmacist. it is also the same wage as when I graduated in 2012. I knocked it back as they were not willing to engage on wages. There are no big bonuses or yearly wage increases (1-3%) an we could only hope for the wage increases being demanded by the public sector.

There are plenty of locums around but they are able to pick when and where they work as well as negotiate rates of pay. The trouble is pharmacies in particular the big chains are getting away with closing stores or operating reduces hours instead of paying locums. Instead they cite pharmacist shortage which is untrue in most cases. Many locum report pharmacy chains cancelling their shifts at short notice and then the pharmacy is either closed or reduced hours. They are getting away with it currently but the more pressure members of the public put on their local health boards the better. Phone them and complain. If a pharmacy is operating on reduced hours they could lose their NHS contract as they aren't fulfilling it. Many customers don't know this though and won't have the time or inclination to find out where to complain to.

I think this is the point. You can’t get your prescription if no pharmacist there and now some pharmacies are sharing one chemist. So for big chunks of the day you can’t get a prescription checked.

My pharmacy is a nightmare. Waiting times can be anywhere between 20 mins and an hour and a half. Often you are given the wrong prescription with your name on it or the right prescription with the wrong name on it, they will just shout to you about your prescription from across the room, no matter whether you are picking up some prescription antibiotics or pile cream, sometimes they will try to tell you that you have come too early to pick it up, even when you are not. I get that everyone is struggling and I wouldn't be so bothered if they weren't so rude. More often than not, they've given the impression it is my fault for having an autoimmune disorder in the first place.

I work on the counter in a community pharmacy. I've been here 7 years now, and the number of customers has trebled. Working from home has had a big part to play in that.

We always have a queue nowadays. And maybe 1 in 10 in that queue want to speak to the pharmacist. Every time the pharmacist comes out to speak to someone, prescriptions for checking build up, customers get put on hold on the phone line and the time people have to wait increases. So we then get "never had to wait this long before covid... you lot (you lot!!) always use covid as an excuse... "(us lot never mention it).

Online services taking all the easy customers doesn't help. We are increasingly left with those with more complex needs. Increasing the waits.

I wish the staff at my local pharmacy were as hard working! I went in a 5pm and the woman behind the counter wouldn't sell me something as she'd cashed up. She was not happy when I pointed out they closed at 6.30pm! In the end the pharmacist came out and served me. On another occasion a different pharmacist wouldn't sell me an over the counter medication as I hadn't seen my GP. Isn't that the idea, speak to the pharmacist and save a GP appointment?

Some over the counter medications should not be sold to just everyone without a doctor's advice.

Thrush treatment for over 60s. Verruca treatment for diabetics... decongestants to people on blood pressure medication... lots of stuff for people on blood thinners... many more. If pharmacy was just selling any stuff to any people that want it, life would be easy.

If it didn't need regulating, then it wouldn't be behind the counter. That's the whole point

I had no idea!!

If it all went online you would not be able to get urgent non regular prescriptions filled. And no one to ask for advice about that rash for example, so more pressure on GPs.

It won't all go online. There's no profit in people with complex needs that have changing medications. The online services cherry pick the people with easy simple prescriptions wherever possible.

We get many people returning to our community pharmacy from online ones... a few every single week, as their needs are not always being met.

DD has just told me that now have to make up more dosette boxes because the Lloyds pharmacy nearby is closing, so they are getting all of their patients.

She has had to put up with a lot of abuse from angry and upset patients due to drug shortages and doctors not signing off prescriptions in time. They only have two methadone patients at her branch, but her friend has 50 where she works (same pharmacy, different branch).

On the bright side, they were overwhelmed by the kindness and appreciation of customers and patients at Christmas who brought in boxes of biscuits and chocolates for the staff.

We have to do more dosette boxes now too, very few of the chains want to do them. It is something that should be easy to automate, but there can't be a lot of money in them or everyone would be wanting to do them.

We use them as a good training start point. New trainees get to know where all the medication is in the dispensary and get used to using the phone to call the hospital and doctors surgeries to chase up release notes and changes. Their mentor then checks the boxes before the pharmacist does. But that is good for us because we train in house, lots of places only take on experienced staff now.

This is terrible to hear, and it’s familiar territory- either companies reducing staff/ not paying their staff appropriately so they can maximise profit

and

government not reimbursing adequately for the cost of the medications

i was in a pharmacy yesterday and a woman was shouting at the poor pharmacist as what she wanted wasn’t there. I get that she’s annoyed, but that pharmacist should not have to experience that. It was horrible

@BeyondMyWits DD was put on dosette boxes on her first day as they had got so behind. She is only a pharmacy assistant on minimum wage, but I think her work experience has help her secure an interview for her masters application which is HCP related.

The owner of the chain isn't great and sent DD an unpleasant message for daring to rake a day off sick for having a migraine. And she recorded a sick day when DD was sent home with a migraine even though she had turned up for work. That was illegal. Apparently they have a staff retention problem.

DD loves working there though and gets on really well with her workmates.

So what's the point of the 'ask a pharmacist' campaign if they still won't prescribe? As it's nearly impossible to see a GP these days presumably you just don't get treatment.

Because most things are available to be prescribed/sold if the pharmacist is happy to. Some licensing for the products behind the counter state that they must only be sold if the patient has been diagnosed before or if the patient is a certain age, or if they aren't on other medications, or aren't pregnant or breast-feeding. It's also up to each individual Pharmacist as it's their registration at the end of the day.

It was thrush medication. I would have preferred it to have been prescribed by a GP as the longer course works better but was trying to be responsible and not waste an appointment.

I had the same problem recently with thrush medication. This time I had spoken to my GP as I was in antibiotics and was told to take a second course of flucanazole if the first didn't work. The pharmacist said this was a definite no, he wouldn't sell me a second one. I was standing there thinking well I'll go elsewhere, you think I want to be standing here having this conversation with you in the bloody shop?

I've never had this sort of problem at other pharmacies, they must hire a special kind of staff at my local chemist!