To be pissed off with the GP surgery?

[dontrunwithscissors]

I submitted an online request to my GP for a repeat prescription of levothyroxine on Friday. It was for 100mg tablets and 25mg tablets. I've taken a 125mg dose for 2 years. Repeat prescriptions are for 3 months at a time.

I've just got an email saying the GP won't issue 25mg tablets as I haven't had any prescribed since July 2015. This is utter rubbish! I visited my GP and got a renewal of all my meds prescribed (I take 12 different meds) in October because I was going abroad for a month. This isn't the first time I've had problems with repeat prescriptions. They've randomly issued wrong types of medications and wrong doses before. Each time I've had to traipse in and see my 'good' GP who is very confused by the mistakes and sorts it out.

I explained very calmly to the receptionist that the systerm must be wrong because I have definitely been taking a 125mg dose every day. I explained to her that it's obviously impossible for me to have taken that dose if I hadn't been given any 25mg tablets for 7 months. I suggested that maybe there's been an error on the system. Apparently that's utterly impossible. The receptionist was insistent that I could not have been taking 25mg tablets and they couldn't issue more. There was an inference that perhaps I was confused.

So now 1) I'm going to have to 'waste' a GP appointment to sort this out; 2) and take time off work to do it; 3) I'm going to run out of 25mg tablets in the meantime.

AIBU to think this is a ridiculous waste of everyone's time and be frustrated with the attitude that technology can never be wrong.

Just to throw a cat among the pigeons- I agree every 3 months is tedious (I used to use pharmacy2u and I just got delivered automatically by post or if I them rang up - no bothering GP at all) however there was a problem in 2011-12 with TEVA 100 pills and they were recalled. This didn't happen with me so I ran into issues, not least as I conceived my son probably as I started the faulty packet. So I see it as good care to be on top of it this regularly. (TEVA had its license suspended and there's supposed to be better checking going on.)

Also, for years as a newly diagnosed patient I didn't know much about the condition and spent a couple of years struggling, trusting the system. When I fully went to GP about chronic constipation she said she'd have liked to have seen a better Tsh on the last test (about a year previously) ie it went under the radar. My thinking is that if a GP had glanced at all those things as mentioned up thread they might have picked up on that. Tsh is s big area of debate but pretty much recognised now as being best for patient at the lower end - I'm finding more gps follow this as well as asking about symptoms.

Things can change due to lifestyle changes or other medications. So, yes, 3 months is a hassle but ime I'd rather not have run into the issues I have had by falling through the loop.

The current 'issue' I have is that I take 125/150 alternate days, but just get issued a months supply of 175.

You can have mine op

3 months.

But the system must be lax here as I just reordered (and received them ) forgetting about the extra boxes id been very tidy about and Marie Kondoed away somewhere.

But if they don't recheck bloods there is really no argument over three monthly prescribing. It would be fine if the admin ran smoothly but too often it doesn't. When I make an error at work it gets sorted with minimum fuss for the client. When GPs make errors it's the patient who does the running. How about next time my prescription isn't at the pharmacy and the doctor says it is but can I just check the other pharmacy; how about the,GP goes to check in their spare time and gets it sorted and listens to their receptionist telling them "the prescription was sent". Then when it's,reissued the GP perhaps can take it to the chemist and then deliver it, because I sure as heck don't have two hours a time to deal with your admin cock ups. Perhaps if it were the GPs time that was spent doing the sorting out, admin systems,would soon improve but never mind the jolky old patient has nothing better to do and it's a free service so be grateful and doff your cap.

My mum had a similar situation. She gets a lot on repeat and they kept getting it wrong. It should have been easy - put a tick in the box next to the ones she needs. She kept being given the ones she hadn't ticked. She complained and got the patronising "you must have made a mistake" comments from the receptionist. So she started photocopying her repeats. After 2 balls ups she made an official complaint and was able to present the practice manager with evidence of the administration staffs incompetence. It all then got sorted - funnily enough. It happens too often and for mum it could have been very dangerous. I really don't understand how they kept getting it wrong!

Beaufort it really sounds as if you have problems with your GP. It's tough on everyone when things go wrong but really, some of your comments are very naive. Why don't you join your surgery's patient participation group (every surgery has to have one) and a) try and understand what goes on behind the scenes and b) help them to improve some of the things you find so disappointing?

I'm only allowed 28 days of thyroxine at a time! Very frustrating- I've been taking it for over 11 years, I'm not going to suddenly stop needing it, what can't I have 2 or 3 months worth at a time?! I also have the problem that the surgery send most of the repeat prescriptions electronically to the pharmacies. I collect mine in person but they often 'approve' it but don't actually print and sign it as they assume it's gone electronically. Which means the receptionist running around trying to find anyone to sign a 'copy' of the prescription as the original was never issued. It does make me worry about the older/more confused patients as I have to check every prescription for errors.

Because I have a fulltime job ohtobeskiing, plus two teenagers, a home and a husband. How many times do prescriptions have to go astray and how many times should patients have to sort it out before practices put it right. Whilst I've been snippy on here I wish practice staff were half as polite to me as I am to them. Just sick of being told how busy doctors arecas I they are the only ones under pressure.

Here in Australia we get given a prescription with 5 repeats (usually 30 tabs each month) although I guess the number of repeats would be more restricted with DD's.

However, if our prescription expires and we haven't got a new one, or just can't find the damn thing, then the pharmacy will just issue an emergency supply of seven and keep the rest aside. We must take a new prescription to the pharmacy withing that seven day period to pick up the rest or the pharmacy starts sending you letters.

I assume they have some kind of backup system to contact your previous prescribing Dr. if needed.

Have you checked with your regular pharmacy if they do the same thing?

*within not withing

I feel your pain op!!
Either the gp or pharmacy have 'lost' ( forgotten)my prescription for my painkillers for the last 3 months!
I have gone from getting 2 months worth of long term meds to suddenly only one months supply?
Which would be ok but i really can't rely on the pharmacy!
I have been prescribed a certain brand of one medication for 8 years and suddenly i was given a different one.
I had problems with it but was told the brand i had been having was too expensive!
I have a number of health problems, this only exacerbated some of them.
Thankfully after a few months i told my normal nice gp and thankfully she put me straight back on my normal brand.

"Computer says no" must be so annoying, especially when people won't believe you!

I ran out of my throxine over a week ago, I am still trying to get an appointment to get a new prescription...

I got so fed with only being 'allowed' to have 28 days worth of thyroxine I've Pretty much stopped getting repeat prescriptions as I just don't have time to go doctors To put in the repeat script wait two days go back to sort it when it's wrong grr. Just don't bother taking it anymore

Yes, and if doctors can respond please. From 1992 until about 2007 my GP happily gave me 365 100mcg of thyroxine. Five minutes for him and five minutes for me. And then 28 day prescribing came in. I still only get one blood test a year and six prescriptions. How is the latter more cost effective or efficient please. It just takes doctor time away from more important issues, it wastes my time and GPs go along with it as being a jolly good thing. It isn't, it's a pain in the arse. My GPs time would be better spent diagnosing sick people and it's a shame my presenting Graves was missed for about four years. Perhaps I wouldn't have osteoporosis now if it hadn't been; perhaps your profession should be a bit keener on ensuring I have access to effusions rather than cheaper stuff that's sub optimal due to other complications.

They are crap. Thyroid patients know how much medication they need, FFS!

I had a thyroidectomy, put on 100mcg. At post-surgical consultation the surgeon suggested that dosage was too high because I weighed 'about 7.5 stone'. I told him I weighed 9.5, and he said I didn't!
The idiot then wrote me a prescription for 50mcg , and misspelled 'Levothyroxine' on the prescription.
Pharmacy refused to honour it because it was illegally written. GP refused to rewrite a prescription for 75, because the surgeon had stated 50 on the illegal prescription.
He did agree that the accompanying letter stated 75, but said he couldn't overrule the surgeon.
6 months later, when I couldn't stay awake at all, blood tests concluded that 100mcg was more appropriate. Then we discovered I was intolerant to it anyway.

I take NDT now. Order privately (with knowledge of new GP), and actually feel normal.
I have a cupboard full of Levothyroxine in various dosages. They gave me a double amount one month. The previous month they had given me some poor chaps heart medication as a bonus item.

I lost the will for a long time.

Sorry beaufort - no interest in answering your questions after your vile comments on GPs earlier in the thread. I get enough abuse at work, thanks.

What vile comments were they? Honestly. Does it upset you that much that a mere patient objects to the extent to which their time is wasted? I think you have just highlighted what is wrong with the NHS. It won't take criticism, however constructive, and believes because it is "free" that the time of patients is not as important as the time of those who work for it. If I assumed all my clients were dim or mistaken I'd quickly be out of a job.

I have a cupboard full of Levothyroxine in various dosages. They gave me a double amount one month

Well that sums up one of the reasons for 28 day prescribing!

Seriously though, do none of you use repeat dispensing?

I know the NHS is massively understaffed and overworked, but yes it can be very frustrating!

I have just go a text message to confirm my appointment on Friday morning (which I booked over three weeks ago and was the first available with my doctor), they have confirmed it with a different doctor.

If I had been going to see him, I could have been in there weeks ago!!

Lucky I'm not seriously ill (I hope...)

Repeat dispensing isn't available where I live. Where I used to live Boots sent me a text every two months to say my prescription was ready. They have electronic prescriptions here but they are dependent on pharmacy applying for them, there's no text system and when you go to the chemist to find out what's happening they say it hasn't come back from the surgery and the surgery denies all knowledge. The only way I can kerp on top of it is to send repeat requests by recorded delivery with an sae. The on-line system has a glitch, I have been unable to register and the practice managed has never responded. I stay with the surgery because two of the eight doctors are fab.

Drylce from the outside looking in, they are overworking themselves by sweating this sort of stuff which is totally unnecessary. Do we really need CCGs or are they another costly layer if bureaucracy that funds mediocre managers, often ex nurses, and drain money from patient care? People in the NHS have allowed this level of waste to happen. They welcomed PCTscwith open arms just as GP fundholders were proving successful but the left couldn't accept the good sense of an initiative from the right

Doesn't surprise me at all, my GP point blank refused to prescribe my emergency steroids for my brittle asthma, despite having a) received a letter from my consultant detailing my asthma plan and prescriptions, and b) spoken with them on the phone. I was standing in the surgery reception, with a 45% peak flow, clearly unwell, and could clearly hear him arguing with the nurse practitioner, who was the one who sat with me for 45 minutes and looked after me whilst waiting for an ambulance when I had my previous attack.

He didn't even see me, and the waiting room was clear :(

He's also the GP who refused to refer me last year when the pharmacist flagged up inhaler overuse. I'd been getting through 1+ ventolin every month for years, yet he still insisted my asthma was mild and well controlled because he's 'the asthma expert' at the surgery. Twat. That's now left me with seriously out of control brittle asthma because the overuse is v bad for your lungs.

I know one of the other GP's is an MNer. I'm gifting him an Asthma Awareness course in my Will. HTH, he needs one.

Could I ask a personal question? If thyroid medication is messed up does it have serious implications? I only ask as I'm due to get results today/tomorrow for suspected thyroid issues and I'm kind of worried about about some of the experiences here.

I recently had a lump in my breast removed ( all fine, phew) and when taking that out they found another worrying one, which wasn't cancer but indicated I'm more likely to develop it in future,so I was sent for a MRI scan back in September , admin errors (a consultant I've never seen kept cancelling the request, which was only discovered because I kept ringing up) meant I only had the scan last week and thankfully I had no more hidden worrying lumps, but it was mentioned I had a tremor? And hospital suggested I had a blood test. In a way I'm hoping it is that as it explains so much stuff, weight loss, sleeping problems, fatigue, anxiety, all of which I've been to my gp about over the last six years. Hosp were very suprised that it hasn't already been done because my weight alone (I've dropped to size 4) is a very common symptom. In a way, I hope it's thyroids because it explains why I've felt so so tired to the point of weeping daily with it and maybe I can feel better with medication.

The receptionist can only follow protocol
I if i was a receptionist in this case (I only work for a dentist) would take details and then talk to GP/practice manager to find out exactly what has happened then get back to you rather than you having to waste an appointment.

People do talk to and about GP receptionists like they are pieces of crap on MN though, just because they aren't GPs, and assume they have some sort of powers when they really just work implementing practice policy and trying to strike a balance between pissing off the GPs and pissing off the patients.

Not even you OP I refer to posts such as "she's not a fucking GP, fuming useless woman'.