Pharmacy Jobsworth or Normal?

[bangheadhere40]

I would like opinions on this please as I've not had this in a pharmacy before.

I took time out of work today to go and pick up a prescription from the pharmacy for my husband. It was ordered online and had been signed by a doctor, all good.

When I went the lady in the pharmacy said she wasn't going to give it out as it is too early to order it again on repeat. I explained that the doctor had signed it off and she had the signed prescription ( she doesn't know my husbands medical needs). She said no she wasn't going to give me it for him and she is sending it back to the doctor and to try in a few days.

Is this normal? I always thought if the doctor had signed it then it's good to go!

I still don't understand about a second pharmacist. If the OP had taken this prescription to a pharmacist where they didn't know her or her Dh from Adam, how could they possibly know when his next prescription was due ? Unless of course they rang the G.P , but why would they do that ? Do pharmacists now routinely ring G.P's to double - check prescriptions ?

Yes, quite possibly they may have called the GP surgery to check if this is a new patient to them being prescribed controlled drugs. The pharmacist is an essential part of the clinical team & I am always grateful that anything I prescribe will be double checked by a clinician independent to me

It doesn’t really matter what ‘you expect’ though, is it.

It’s literally a pharmacist’s job description (and legally regulated) to check prescriptions and dispense correctly, within the correct time frame(s).

To pp asking about the second pharmacist not knowing the OP’s husband’s medical history - Neither did the first. It will be listed on the repeat prescription/on their system.

@bangheadhere40 I agree with previous poster - maybe look into prescription delivery service if it’s difficult or inconvenient to pick it up in person?

@AmIChangingagain

"Do you need to use the word "jobsworth" OP?

It's so daily mail. (Along with fuming)"
Ffs, that sounds like just a friendlier way of being controlling over what others say.

To put this into perspective, I once went to pick up my prescription and the GP had put 50mg instead of 5mg. Complete (and understandable) accident.

This was for oxycodone. 5mg oxycodone = 10mg morphine (very basically.)

If the pharmacist hadn't known me, and had just dispensed the signed prescription it could've been fatal.

She called the GP there and then to sort out the prescription and had them fax over a new one.

Pharmacists are so incredibly important and I don't blame them for refusing to dispense a prescription if they feel it's incorrect or being overused.
It's their livelihood and a patients life on the line after all.

@TequilaPilates It’s complicated and depends where you ask but as I understand it some users can withdraw from medication in a phased way that manages side effects and experience no problems or can get through them.
Dependence is where a user is taking medication as intended and feels they can’t manage without it - the withdrawal symptoms are too difficult - but you stay on a medically appropriate dose.

Addiction is when use or the behaviour around use becomes problematic eg seeking more drugs than you physically need by abusing prescriptions, presenting at A&E, buying from dealers etc. The drive to get the ‘high’ makes everything else secondary.

Surely though the Doctor needs to check before writing a prescription?

You would think, however the receptionists print out the majority of repeat prescription requests and stick them pile in the drs file for them to sign.
The pharmacy was correct not letting them be collected early, especially if they are meds that are addictive and/or could be abused by some people.

@TequilaPilates the process is designed to flag the drug-seeking behaviour described by @maggiecate, which is an indication that the patient is becoming addicted, i.e. craving increasing quantities of the drug in order to chase a high. That's different to patients with chronic pain who are dependent on strong painkillers in order to function.

We have had this.

New pharmacists and ultra jobsworth.

Dp is diabetic and goes away regularly for a couple of weeks with work and needed his prescription early.

The stress of having to argue that the doctor had prescribed the insulin early because when he would need it he would be miles away.

Then finding the prescription had been thrown away and having to get a doctor to sign another prescription and run back to the pharmacist for them to fill it didn’t do him any good.
I think they are hoping the stress will kill him and he will be one less patient to deal with

There used to be an older lady pharmacist who ran the chemist so well and would have used a bit of common sense

Now she has been replaced by a load of just qualifieds and it has turned to shit.

Older lady was asked to go back 1 day per week to sort out the mess (bags of people’s prescriptions being kicked about the floor. Stuff not kept refrigerated) and keep on top of everything and she told them where to stick their job

I work in a surgery with a chemist joined in the same building. Have never come across this. And if they do have a query they will either call us or nip over and tell us there concerns. But they would no way withhold a prescription because they want to.

For all they know your husband may be going on holiday and needed to order it early or he lost them. It's really not up to them to decide when you can have them once the doctor has signed it off.

If the pharmacist was not on the premises then no prescriptions may be handed out.

Go back - as advised - and speak to the pharmacist

@bangheadhere40

ok, this is interesting. I am shocked that pharmacists are personally liable for what the GP prescribes. Fair enough for checking it's the right meds, and that is doesn't interact etc, but I would have thought a signed prescription overrides a pharmacist.

Why on earth wouldn’t a pharmacist be liable for a drug they are dispensing? I am a doctor (working in a hospital rather than GP) and regularly have to justify what I’ve prescribed to pharmacists and be told I’m wrong and why. A good doctor welcomes being told they are wrong or challenged by a fellow professional.

I have friends who are GPs and they take daily calls about patients putting in their repeats one-two days too early and therefore accruing a small stock of medications. Pharmacy staff, particularly pharmacists are trained to spot and challenge these patterns. There is very little to be a “jobsworth” about when it comes to regulation, management and dispensing of controlled drugs.

They study biochem for 3-4 years at levels we never come close to reaching, they aren’t some glorified shop assistant with a big list in a book out the back.

My close relative is a pharmacist, he often has to do things like this. He lives in permanent fear of making a mistake because of the personal liabilities that would attach to that. I'm sure he's not the only one who will choose to be overcautious - and often receive absolutely vile abuse for it - than put his whole career in jeopardy, and most importantly, the health and well being of a patient.

I think it's good, a belt and braces approach. My baby was prescribed something at a higher dose than it should have been before and it was the pharmacist who picked up the GPs mistake.

The other week my prescription hadn't been processed so the GP receptionist printed it out and got the GP to come and sign it. This all happened right in front of me and the GP didn't even look at the prescription really, just signed it while continuing to talk to someone else. I can see how mistakes are made.

Pharmacists are highly trained professionals working in an area of medicine where errors, either their own or the GP’s, could result in a patient’s death, or the sale and misuse of drugs.

Despite the inconvenience, I’d be happy to know that the pharmacist was observant and taking an active interest in who was being prescribed what and when.

ye dogs, she has appointed herself as Overseer to GP's. Because CLEARLY she knows more about medicine than they do

As a pharmacist they would know more about drugs than pretty much every doctor. It's their specialist subject and they are professionals in their own right, not subordinate to GPs.

Not a jobsworth. The pharmacist carries the responsibility. Their mistakes have huge repercussions.

@bankittenheels, refusing a prescription that is one or two days early (days nit weeks) is just being a pain in the arse.
You have no idea of that patient doesn’t need to go away, has some meetings that means they won’t be able to just pop round at the chemist or if they have just lost a couple of pills.
They won’t build up some stock with a day or two of prescribed medication....
But by telling people they can’t have it ‘early’, you do take the risk of that person being wo medication and suffering for it.

I think it’s crap tbh.

Idontwantotalk. FFS, nothing friendly about it

Calling people doing their jobs "jobsworths" says more about the people using the term than the person actually doing their job

Is that ok with you

@bankittenheels, refusing a prescription that is one or two days early (days nit weeks) is just being a pain in the arse.

How often though? Once, I can see someone letting that through. 3 times in a twelve month period? Every month? Where do you think a health professional should draw the line?

So happy to see a lot of people bigging up pharmacists here ☺️. It’s a hard job and dealing with people who call you a ‘jobsworth’ for actually doing your job makes it all the more difficult.

I will also point out that the only person in the Harold Shipman case to be professionally reprimanded was the pharmacist for failing to intervene when he regularly ordered diamorphine.

Spotting ordering and prescribing patterns is important.

I worry about my local pharmacist, to be honest. He checks everything almost obsessively - more so than any I've had before. He'll ask the same question of me more than once, and has occasionally taken the bag back from me to check it again.

It must be a huge responsibility, and I do wonder if it's become almost too much for him.

I am so very pleased that people are defending the pharmacist, and clarifying how medications are dispensed in this country

*Pharmacists are so incredibly important and I don't blame them for refusing to dispense a prescription if they feel it's incorrect or being overused. It's their livelihood and a patients life on the line after all."

This. Pharmacists are not shop assistants but really important medical professionals.