OP, let me preface the below rant by saying that this is nothing personal against you, it sounds like your pharmacy is struggling and you deserve good service. Maybe try another pharmacy? Maybe the problem is the surgery you go to? Hope you find somewhere useful.
This is my experience working in a pharmacy- I love the job but it is utterly exhausting. Slaving away for minimum wage, sometimes taking 80 phone calls a day, all for simple requests or “just checking if GP approved my request…” GP keeps sending referrals across for things they don’t have time for/could be resolved in pharmacy, or they can’t be bothered to send referral at all (so we don’t get paid), just tell people to go to pharmacy. The surgery we are connected to won’t do requests full stop so also serve at least 50+ people a day who pop in “to request everything on their list, cheers”. Half the time they’re not even due their meds because they misplaced/miscalculated so we have to stand there and explain to them a few days later why it didn’t go through. Constant abuse from ppl angry with GP surgery for being slow/not answering/not diagnosing correctly/Gp prescribed wrong meds. Calmly standing there while being shouted at that if they don’t get their meds TODAY they will DIE.
People coming in “just to look the person in the eye who didn’t give my child their ADHD medication that’s out of stock and now the kid was suspended/treats me like shit”. People shouting at us for things being out of stock when the reason it’s out of stock is because of the Brexit they voted for.
If everyone ordered through the NHS app or sent a direct email to the surgery to request their medication. If everyone waited for our pharmacy to text when their prescription was ready for collection. If I didn’t have to answer the phone every 4 seconds, I’d have time to prepare your prescriptions.
And if surgeries everywhere stopped using our pharmacy for everything they consider themselves too important for, we’d have more time to help the people which is what we would love to do.
Pharmacies everywhere are closing, because people are using online services and/or shopping for meds while doing their weekly shop. People regularly come in for a free consultation with us and walk out empty handed to buy the medication elsewhere. I completely understand because we all have to look after our spendings, but we also have to make ends meet and we aren’t making money off prescribed items. We aren’t making money answering 80+ phone calls a day. And I cannot answer the phone call if I have a line out of the door, because we have to prioritise the people waiting in line. But some people are relentless, will ring off the hook for 15 minutes in order to “request some pain patches, cheers”.
As for why pharmacies are out of so much stock - we cannot afford to keep items on the shelves that aren’t regularly prescribed. We don’t get reimbursed for months after items have been prescribed. Sometimes one box of 30 tablets is around £90. One box for one patient. So yes, it takes time to get things ready. Surgeries are understaffed, GPs are busy. They’re slow to approve your prescriptions. Once they have, we then have to have free time to print, order and prepare your prescriptions. Sometimes it’s out of stock with our suppliers, so I have to shop around. But then the phone calls yet again and I have to stop what I’m doing to be shouted at for something out of my control. Then there’s a queue out the door, someone has ear ache, someone has cut their finger, someone wants to order “everything”, another is annoyed we haven’t called to notify them personally their medication is out of stock. I serve these people, apologise for delay, go back into dispensary, the phone calls… where was I?? Oh I needed to order X for Y and Z. Yelp, her comes the 8 delivery totes. Fridge and controlled drug items, need to put away urgently … need to sign for, need to call the surgery for Mr and Mrs X who have tried calling their surgery 3 times but can’t get through and now have so much pain they’re delirious.
Not to mention the amount of times a day I have to wait in the SAME phone queues to surgeries that customers do (because our surgery won’t allow us to use direct line anymore), because the GP was rushed off their feet and prescribed the wrong medication/wrong dose/an out of stock item. You are caller number 11 in the line, thanks for your patience, we will be with you as soon as we can….. 25 minutes later I’m in the same phone queue, dangling the phone in one hand while trying to dispense medication with another.
I’m using The same phone line customers are trying to call into, so a world of abuse next time customer comes in because “you never answer your phones!!!” I am TRYING….
I don’t really know what the solution is, but people are constantly angry with us for trying to do our jobs. I can only do so much in one day though. We prepare compliance aids for over 80 patients, sometimes popping 11 different meds into boxes by hand. When a customer has paracetamol capsules, that’s 224 capsules sometimes for one single weekly box. It hurts my hands like hell and is incredibly time consuming but it’s part of a free service we provide. And so are deliveries. We deliver for free and 7 times out of 10 the people we deliver to have popped out so we have to try again. And then we get abuse for refusing to do more than 3 delivery attempts. Um, if you aren’t even in, you should collect your own medication and free up the delivery space for people who genuinely need it.
As you can hear OP, it’s a bit of sore subject for me 🤣🤣 We try our best to help everyone where I work but we just don’t have enough time in the day.
On a side note, if you aren’t happy with your pharmacy, there are obviously other pharmacies in the area to try. People come in to threaten us with this quite regularly and all I think is “… We try our best, if it’s not good enough no need to announce your departure, just go on and go”. We can’t please everyone.