in thinking that pharmacists should check the prescription before handing you the medicine?

[DaffoDeffo]

I have had my inhalers changed as my asthma as got worse. Luckily for me I know exactly what each inhaler looks like and I know what the pills look like as I've had them several times.

I went and picked up my prescription and didn't open it till I got home. I had 2 inhalers plus pills and the chemist (I don't want to name them but a big chain) had got every item wrong. The 2 inhalers they had given me were completely the wrong dose (far lower than I had been prescribed) and the pills were the wrong ones.

Tbh I am not sure I would have checked thoroughly (the dose for example) if it wasn't for the fact that I'm familiar with what these medicines look like.

My children are both asthmatic and pick up their own prescriptions and tbh I'm not sure they would know on sight that their medication was wrong. It also makes me worry for my elderly relatives who I also think probably don't check their items against the prescription.

Is it asking too much that they actually bloody check what they hand over to you?

Is this a common thing that they get this sort of thing wrong?

Good pharmacists are a god send, especially now when you're told to try them first, not your GP. We've had similar back in my home country and it can work really well, but you do need a competent pharmacist.

Old area pharmacy had a spectacularly useless pharmacist, 'she's probably still ordering the wrong meds for DP even though we moved about 12 months ago.

The pharmacy where we're now is independent and amazing and they're crazy busy. I've happily trusted their judgement when it came even to DS.

They did - it was a pharmacy within the GP surgery (owned by the partner GPs - a nice little earner for them!).

That explains it but if it is owned by the GP within the surgery then it is a dispensing practice and nothing to do with pharmacists or chemist shops so you are complaining about the wrong people. The GP or their employees made the mistake.

That explains it but if it is owned by the GP within the surgery then it is a dispensing practice and nothing to do with pharmacists or chemist shops so you are complaining about the wrong people. The GP or their employees made the mistake.

No, it's a separate limited company where the shareholders/directors are the same people who are partners in the GP practice. It's not the same legal entity. It's an independent stand alone pharmacy situated in the front corner of the GP's health centre with it's own "shop front" to the main street (as well as it's counter in the GP waiting room).

This just happened to me, they gave me the completely wrong dose tablet. Only realised when the tablets were a different colour. I would have had to take 15 of them to get the right dose. They didn't even apologise, just gave me the right tablets. Lloyds is really going downhill.

Lloyds is really going downhill.

We use our local pharmacist (because it's next door to the doctors and a 3 minute walk from home) so only ever see Lloyds/Boots on irregular occasions. But based on that ... Boots is pisspoor, and Lloyds seem to have a much better idea of what their role in life is.

I must admit I have never had an issue with my local independent pharmacy and I use them for my repeat prescriptions

This was one of the larger chains

We don't really have any independent pharmacies left near me. The lloyds was next to my doctors and was great, but it moved slightly further away, lost the (excellent) pharmacist, and my family have had endless problems ever since. The next nearest one is also a lloyds but it's nowhere near my doctors.

This has happened to me twice at the co-op. A third time the dispensing technician came running down the road after me after realising she'd given me someone else's prescription.

I open it up before I leave the shop now.

This is off the point but a few years ago i went into the local pharmacy to collect my regular medication and was advised that I had to have a quick consultation with the pharmacist to make sure the meds were still OK etc. Fair enough I thought, being the easygoing sort. I didnt mind. The poor pharmacist, though, was puce with embarrassment - he was an old school friend of DS and had known me well as DS’s Mum!