To be a bit annoyed with the pharmacist..

[Bobloblaw]

I have just collected a prescription for my DD, one of the items had a separate sheet and the pharmacist had written the cost of the medicine, underlined it and put three exclamation marks. It is expensive but it's an emergency medication that we use if she has a seizure lasting longer than 10 minutes. I want to mention it to our community nurse but DP thinks I should leave it....AIBU?

In the 1st pharmacy I worked in, we used to give the repeat slip to the patient, or staple it to the bag; but in the 2nd, they were kept, and used for telephone ordering, and notes back to the prescriber as they generally had the patient details etc on.

Well, from what you have said the message was meant for you! I cannot see who else.

Grossly offensive, unprofessional.

As if you haven't got denough to take care of without having to have the added political gripes of the Pharmacist.

Complain, do all you can as you are YANBU.

Is your Dr. supportive? Maybe he/she will be offended too and do something about it.

Pharmacist obviously thinks he can do what he likes.

I would complain. I've come across far too many pharmacists with huge egos that think the customers should bow and scrape to them. Definitely complain

I would have a word myself. I had a pharmacist who insisted on telling me one of DS's, prescribed by his paeditrician, medicines was "very expensive you know, do you really need it" . That and a snidey comment about the 'people on benefits box' made me take my custom elswhere

I have now found a very nice phamacist

well I'm a very nice pharmacist and I think you're all being highly judgy tbh

How the hell do you know why that price was written on the piece of paper and just assume that it's directed at the OP ??

Pharmacists have to endorse prescriptions with the price of the medication in order to claim the cost back from the pricing authority. It may be that the pharmacist was unfamiliar with the medication and querying the cost with the wholesaler and that was the first bit of paper to hand...

Who knows

Ask the pharmacist

Stop jumping to conclusions - some of us are bloody nice and bend over backwards to help/serve our patients including giving free medical advice without appointments and generally getting moaned at all the time with precious little thanks !!!!

YANBU. How rude and insensitive of the pharmacist - I would see it as them questioning the value of my dd's life. A litttle dramatic perhaps but ffs, if the meds save your dd and your GP/consultant feel moved to prescribe them then the pharmacist (who knows nothing of your dd's condition or medical history) should stay the fuck out of it.

You get paid for it though, CailinBainne, it's not like you're doing it for free. I'm certain that lots of people do a job each day over and above what they should do for precious little thanks

Can I ask how much? Tell me to jog on if you like as I'm just being nosy because I simply have no idea how much 'very expensive' is in medicine terms.

Def not the most professional way to do it but it could be that the pharmacist wants you to know how much it costs so that you only order it when you need it. I'm not suggesting you would just order it every time with the meds your daughter takes regularly but there are some patients who do exactly that and then end up returning large amounts of unused, out of date drugs. Often they don't even think about it and just tick all of the repeats.

But it's none of the pharmacist's business as to how often the OP orders it. It's been prescribed by a consultant. Perhaps the consultant wants the OP to keep a big stock of it just in case. It's not the pharmacist's job to query what the doctor has decided.

It's exactly the pharmacists job to query what is prescribed, that is what prevents mistakes being made. It's also part of the pharmacists job to help save the NHS money. I don't condone the way it was done, written communication is so easy to take the wrong way and a quick mention would have been better but if you had seen the quantity of wasted medicines you get you might see the pharmacist point.

I do see the point, delusion, but it seems the pharmacist was taking out their frustration on the wrong person. If they have a gripe with the drug prescribed then perhaps it would be better if they contacted the consultant prescribing it. I think pharmacists need to bear in mind that anyone getting a prescription from them is in fact a customer.

The drug was probably appropriate, the cost was high but probably the only option for that medicine. The pharmacist very likely did not have a problem with the drug prescribed but was trying (in a not very professional manner) to remind the OP that its expensive so that, if she hadn't used last months, she wouldn't order extra that wasn't needed.

I quite often mention to my patients how much stuff costs in a how do the drug companies get away with it type manner, or simply as a point of interest (because I am a pharmacy geek) Or on a couple of occasions because they have brought me a massive bag of returns then presented me with a prescription for the exact same drugs they have just returned. Sometimes when you don't pay for things you don't see their value iyswim. I'm not saying this was what happened in the OPs case, other posters have made sensible suggestions such as a note when talking to the specials manufacturer made in a stupid place.

(as an aside I tend to see the NHS as a whole as the customer unless I'm doing OTC sales. Although as a customer the OP could vote with her feet and not use the pharmacy again)

I'm a pharmacist , in hospital so not quite up to date with how chemists run ,but I would think that it was probably written down by some one ordering the medication. Either staff checking that it was ok before they ordered it or the pharmacist making a note so that they would get paid for it.
Handing it out like that wasn't very helpful. But I doubt they were making judgments about weather your daughter was worth it. I don't
I do see it is part of my job (and so does my job description) to make sure that all drugs I issues are being prescribed appropriately and that may mean querying the prescription with the doctor. Just last week I got a dose of an anti-epileptic medication changed as the doctor hadn't realized that a lower dose was needed if it was combination with another drug that the child was on.

Delusion, I'm surprised at the tone of your posts. As far as I understood a pharmacist highlighted the cost of emergency medication for a child to a parent. Surely that's unprofessional? If they were concerned about previous wasted medication or the prescribing of brand medication when a generic type is available they should contact the doctor/ consultant?

Op, I would go back and ask the pharmacist to clarify their comment on your child's prescription. If for no other reason than a health professional has commented on your child's medication and it's not clear why. Personally I think they are being cheeky and are out of order, but if there is a genuine reason, it would be best to know.

MrsAmaretto - I apologise if my posts appear confrontational, I do agree (and have mentioned several times) that I think the pharmacist in the OP was unprofessional. I was just trying to point out that mentioning price with medication can be done for other reasons than trying to say that the OP's daughter was not worth the cost (as other posters suggested). I don't think I am expressing myself very well.

OP - I would also mention it to the pharmacist. I doubt that they wanted to make you feel bad and the feed back will make sure they are more careful in the future about mentioning price.

I bet the price was jotted down by the dispensing staff when they did the re-order and was a mistake that the op saw it. But this is just a guess, only the staff in question will be able to answer this one.

You won't know until you ask OP, so I would suggest either asking at the pharmacy or speaking to your community nurse.

But I would ask "Do you know why they would write the price on here like this?" rather than complain or jump to a conclusion (although I can see why the underlining and !!! might feel aggressive - how often is it said on here that it's hard to interpret tone and meaning from words on a screen?)

Otherwise I would either just let it go and try to remember that they have no idea what your circumstances are and whatever conclusions they may jump to are irrelevant because your daughter is getting the medication she needs. Or I would change the pharmacy I used.

But, having complained on another thread about twice being blamed for missing appointments when it was down to a mistake made by surgery staff, I do think it would be a good idea to make patients aware of the cost of things like this to the NHS. Not to make them feel bad but because actually we do benefit greatly from it and perhaps it would make some patients (not meaning you OP) a bit less likely to waste the resources.

I was reading this week about a new medication that might help patients with CF, but it would cost £190,000 per patient per year to implement if and when it becomes available in the UK. My friend has two young girls with CF and that medication would help them live longer, healthier lives if they could get it soon. Obviously my friends couldn't pay that even once for even just one of their girls, so if they were able to have it it would be on the NHS and things like this might be more available to patients if money could be saved elsewhere, like on missed appointments and wasted medications (again, not you OP, it's just that your thread, and another one about the cost of medication on a private prescription, got me thinking about the issue).

We were at the doctors surgery today and they had the missed appointments up on the screen. There were 474 missed last month and they can't all have been the fault of the woman who messed up mine . I think they should put the cost up as well as the number, in the hope that it will make people realise what could be done with the money being wasted (including paying for much needed medication like your daughters OP.)

I was witness to a conversation between a GP and receptionist (not overheard/spying- I was the only person in the waiting room. Receptionist behind desk, GP in waiting room by window)

Receptionist- holds up green prescription sheet which was longer than her height with her arm raised. "This is one months prescription".

GP :"£600 a month.We're keeping them alive too long"

WTAF . It wasn't a private conversation, it was in the waiting room. I don't know if it was for my benefit, (I work for NHS myself) but I was not impressed.

Another incident> The pharmacist said to a patient :"These tablets are £25 each, I kid you not". I don't think he meant anything untoward, more just a 'make sure you don't waste them or drop them down the loo' type of comment.

From your description I think I have an idea what the medication is. It is what is called a special, which are usually very expensive.

PCTs are encouraging pharmacists and GPs to cut down on the number that are prescribed and dispensed as many are prescribed inappropriately when cheaper non-specials could be given - for example you could break a tablet in half which costs £2-3 or order a special liquid for £120 (I am pretty sure this is not the case for you).

The other problem is that there are huge price discrepancies between the companies that make these products (hundreds of pounds for some) so we are encouraged to try several companies to find the cheapest.

I think here the pharmacist or staff member has done one of two things here -

• Written the cheapest available price for his own reference as we have to record on the script.

Or

-Written it for the doctor as we are encouraged to feed back specials costs to doctors.

Either way it was at best a clumsy way of doing it or at worse fairly unprofessional.

In general, I think it's very helpful to highlight the true costs of drugs. So many people on the 'benefit bashing threads' get on their high horse and say 'I pay my way, I pay more in tax than I get the benefit of.' Then someone mentions drug treatments and they respond 'No, I pay for my prescriptions...'

Err...no, you don't. The cost of drugs is phenomenal. You pay £7 odd towards it.

ok, here is one for you. I take fist fulls of medication a day, for asthama, epliepcy and other things.

When I was in the UK, I paid for my prescriptions and then when I became epilepic i didn´t have to. I also take the adult version of the drug you are refering to.

Now here in Spain if you privately prescribed you pay the real cost of the drugs. So one box of my anit convulsants which would last 15 days cost ...................150? I take 3 different seizure medications and that is the cheapest.

BUt the emergency medication cost 15? for 5 pk of 10ml dose.

Also NO pharmasist over here would make that comment.

I hospital pharmasist once saved my life as the drug the Consultant wanted to prescribed would have reacted with another drug I was taking and kill me.. thank god the prescription was filled at the hospital the pharmasit took one look and got on the phone to the consultant.

It is best just to ask honestly. Hay did you mean to write this on here, do you need it back? Then you know where you stand and can argue, report, accept the appology or go somewhere else.

The medication the OP refers to is an 'emergency rescue' medication to be used only in the event that her DD has a prolonged seizure. So I am sure that she is actually hoping not to use it - and it may well end up being returned when it goes out of date. However, she needs to have it just in case and the cost of not having it - in the event that her DD does have a seizure - will also be expensive, both in terms of NHS care and possibly her DD's life.

I had an experience recently where a high street pharmacy provided me with a supply of 'rescue medication' for my DD which only had a 3 month shelf life. I knew it was available from the right source with a 3 year shelf life so I took it upon myself to trawl the high street pharmacies to find a supplier who could get me the drug with a long shelf life (it is a specially made preparation). I succeeded and will have saved the NHS vast amounts of cash by doing so. So not all patients want to waste public money - and it was only because of my knowledge of this drug that I was able to do so - the pharmacist at the 1st shop did not act in the NHS best interest (no doubt advised by their money making head office to make the most profit for themselves!!!

If he put it on the repeat prescription bit it would seem he wants the prescriber to see, probably because there are cheaper makes out there

Still He was bu