Pharmacist reviewed my prescription?

[adultcat]

I live in a smallish village - the kind where everyone know each other (or thinks they do!). I serve my doctor and pharmacist where I work so am familiar with them.
Today, I went to collect my repeat prescription and was asked if I had five minutes to spare for the pharmacist to speak to me. We went off in the side room and he logged on to the computer. He then asked me if I was happy with my medication / any side effects. Asked me if I am happy with my contraception and what alternatives there were as I've stopped taking the mini pill as I wasn't getting on with it - he wanted to know why...!
The whole 'chat' felt really uncomfortable, possibly because I serve him as a customer but I was wondering if this is a done thing now? I thought it would be my doctors place to review my medication and check everything is ok?
Has anyone else had this done??

If I’d known or even suspected it was pancreatitis of course I wouldn’t have gone to the bloody pharmacy! I ended up at A&E 2 days later where it was diagnosed.

I don’t think there’s a ‘taboo’ about talking about contraception, I just want to choose who I discuss it with and if someone is too stupid to work out how many are in a years supply of pills then I don’t trust them to know what’s best for me!

Obviously most pharmacists are good (including the one I spoke to when I had pancreatitis, he’s usually excellent), my local chemist seems to employ the dregs though so I avoid them wherever possible.

Paperdolly I can see why you were pissed off. I can understand why the pharmacist was asking, but there’s no way he should have asked in front of a queue of people. I would have said I wasn’t prepared to have the conversation there, could I speak to him in private.

The lack of respect and understanding is shocking.

The only criticism I've seen is where people feel their privacy is at risk.

Really Juells?

People have criticised the idea that a pharmacist should even perform such reviews, have been annoyed to be even asked, have called them failed doctors, and have said they shouldn’t have the right not to dispense! When their licence is on the line if they feel a prescription is unsafe or overdue a review they absolutely should have the right not to dispense until they have clarified things.

I thought the review date was on the other half of the prescription. I never give that to the pharmacist, I always bin it

This thread is one of the most batshit I've ever read on Mumsnet and it's fucking Mumsnet!

100% this

To be fair to those objecting it isn’t great to ask these sort of questions at the counter in a busy shop. It’s better if they’ve got a side room to use for a bit more privacy. The Lloyds in my local Sainsbury’s has a little private cubical at the end of the counter that you can use to have a private conversation with the pharmacist. This feels like a better arrangement.

@gamerwidow i agree it should be in a private area so kept confidential. But some posters in this thread even object to that because apparently it raising "red flags" seems like its a lose-lose

Yes, side rooms are ideal. Both my (excellent) local community pharmacies have consulting rooms that seem pretty well used. I appreciate not all have these though.

YY Peng. Tbh I think lose-lose pretty much sums it up.

This is a normal part of a pharmacists job - they don't train all those years just in order to put medications into boxes!

I've not read the thread but here's my tuppence.

You go and see the doctor about your medication and you have 10 minutes to talk about everything you take, if you have over 2 or 3 items then you will not have enough time to go through each one and discuss them.

An MUR is a highly useful NHS service offered by a pharmacy to assist the patient in taking their medication correctly and safely, and with no time restraints. Take for example someone with COPD and looking at good inhaler techniques, or someone on high blood pressure medication and saying they sometimes get light-headed. An MUR will highlight these issues and make an intervention with the GP for the doctor to look into the problems, I have seen many times how a patient having an MUR has helped them with taking the medication.

Yes they will always be carried out in a private consultation room and the patient will be asked to sign a consent form to agree to the meeting.

Thank-you crop circles for some reason. This thread has been incredibly depressing.

Pharmacists can, and do, refuse to dispense drugs because they don’t feel like (oh, sorry, “because they have a religious objection”). It’s a “profession” that is so “professional” that they will refuse you service, for drugs prescribed by doctors, because their feels might get hurt by taking a box off the shelf and handing it to you. On the other hand, when the price is right, it’s a profession that is absolutely happy to sell water (oh, sorry, “homeopathic medicine”) at vast profit.

That’s why the claim that it’s all intellectual and shit ring so hollow: they’re science-based, except when they want to sell water at a large profit or arbitrarily refuse to provide prescription drugs on the basis of superstition. Does a pharmacist who thinks that water is an effective drug conduct NHS medicine reviews? Does a pharmacist who refuses to dispense certain drugs because of their feels conduct NHS medicine reviews? At least if your doctor is a charlatan like that you probably have some advance warning. With a pharmacy, it’s pot luck as to whether they’re someone sensible, or a homeopath, or a religious extremist who will deny you prescribed drugs on an arbitrary basis.

Drive out the nutters and the profession might be taken more seriously.

@redandyellowandpinkandgreen99

After almost a decade of training and slogging to pass exams and achieve lots of specialist medical knowledge, and working at the same time for some of it (to get the experience,) doctors don't really know much..... and people would rather go to their pharmacist. Wow!

I am not saying they don't know stuff, but to suggest they know more than doctors is actually quite hilarious. If they DID know as much as doctors, and they had achieved the same academically, they would have BEEN doctors! That is true for the majority of them. Maybe hard to accept, but it is......

Dentists also don't have to study/train for as long as GPs. Presumably, therefore, they are also failed doctors, and if they'd been as good academically as doctors, they'd BE doctors. Right? And if you want a REAL expert on teeth, you should go to your GP, who obviously knows more than your dentist because they studied for longer.

Or maybe, just maybe, choosing to specialise right from the start in a particular area of medicine can make you MORE expert in LESS time in that particular area than someone who studies widely? Just like pharmacists. They obviously know very little compared to GPs about anatomy, diseases and everything else that's NOT pharmacology, but it shouldn't be particularly surprising that by virtue of focusing on their one particular specialty, they might wind up knowing more than a GP about that bit.

All pharmacies must have a private consultation area, it’s in their contract and part of GPhC regulations.
@ReflectentMonatomism I’ve been a dispenser in a pharmacy for over 20 years and I’ve never ever had a pharmacist refuse to dispense any drug prescribed by a gp because of religious objection.
They can refuse to sell the MAP which is different as that’s a private sale not on the NHS, which I agree is ridiculous and shouldn’t be allowed but there you are.

This thread is depressing, Pharmacist’s are qualified to masters level not someone who just does a day release training program in sticking labels on boxes.

I had several annual MuRs at a Boots attached to my practice building it was tick boxing.
I changed pharmacies as that one took so long to dispense prescription medication. You ended up needing to ask 2 weeks early for meds to be ready.
My new pharmacist annoyed me at first to cut a long story short he was very conscientious.
But he cares. I've learned a lot about my medicine from him. At my first MUR He made some suggestions to talk to my GP (who is brilliant) about which led to several consultant appointments which have really helped.
When my Ds had surgery last year he helped me decide the best pain relief regimen based on the 2 I was given for him. He also stayed late to let me collect morphine for DS as well.
I watch him with other customers and he is really good at helping them and he knows them really well.
In areas where GPs are so transient pharmacists can be the only constant in chronic patient care.
Your pharmacist may have been asking about contraception because of another med you were on rather than because he was intrusive.

Pharmacist’s are qualified to masters level not someone who just does a day release training program in sticking labels on boxes.

Someone on day release might have the excuse they don’t know that homeopathy is bullshit. With a masters degree either you are unprincipled enough to be willing to use your white coat to legitimate bullshit for profit, or your degree is so bogus it allows you to believe water is curative. Which is it?

Reflenctant
I saw your answer to my nebulising saline and using a homeopathic remedy, which both worked when the gp gave me no assistance. Like the way you ignored my comment about the homeopathic remedy having drastic results and tried to make me look like a fool for insinuating I thought saline was the same as a homeopathic remedy.

I was advised to take it by a toxicologist, who specialises in testing the effectiveness of drugs on the human body. Just because you don’t understand how homeopathy works it doesn’t mean it is sugar water.

That’s good to know about private consulting areas Mudmonster.

Totally agree with your post ThePants.

st because you don’t understand how homeopathy works

Enlighten us. Hoes does it work? Feel free to be as technical as you like: I can keep up.

And could a pharmacist, who we see plenty of on this thread defending their intensive study and their masters degrees, perhaps tell us either (a) how homeopathy works (after all, they’ve got a masters degree and don’t just print out labels, so presumably they know) or (b) why they sell stuff they know doesn’t work in order to make money?

Homeopathy doesn't work; however, the placebo effect does.

I would never encourage someone to try homeopathy, but if someone feels it works for them and there is no contraindication with their condition or medications they are taking I would not stop someone from choosing to use supplements or homeopathic 'remedies.

Mummyoflittledragon - I should add that I'm very glad you found something that works for you!

I don’t think homeopathy works. The overall evidence is that it doesn’t.
To those criticising pharmacists who sell it do you think the sale of homeopathy should be banned? And if not who do you think would be more appropriate to sell it?
I have a generally liberal approach. I’m quite happy for places like boots to sell homeopathy alongside massage oils, skin care supplements and other remedies that don’t do anything beyond a placebo effect that people like to buy to make themselves feel better.
I think pharmacists who are asked for advice about using homeopathy should be honest about the lack of evidence of benefit and shouldn’t be pushing it as equivalent to evidence based allopathic medicine.