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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Pharmacy Jobsworth or Normal?

315 replies

bangheadhere40 · 15/10/2019 13:26

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!

OP posts:
Pixxie7 · 16/10/2019 01:29

I think this has to do accountability and concerns over possible addiction. However having said that the ultimate accountability lays with the prescriber so if the dr has signed it in theory the prescription should have been filled. He or she is probably new or power hungry.

Have you thought of using somewhere like pharmacy to you I have been using them for over a year and never had any problems.

Pixxie7 · 16/10/2019 01:35

Temazepam is a controlled drug so different rules apply.

JenniR29 · 16/10/2019 04:58

‘Do I not have to agree somehow to them keeping all that information?’

This information is important. Your previous dispensing history can help a pharmacist pick up any potentially dangerous interactions and help prevent overprescribing which can lead to overdose.

For those still saying the GP prescription overrides a pharmacist: it certainly does not. A pharmacist can refuse to dispense anything they are not legally or clinically happy with and can withhold a prescription until they are happy.

For example a couple of months ago I received a prescription for 600 MST 60mg tablets (enough morphine to bring down a sumo wrestling squad!). This was a typo, the doctor obviously meant 60 tablets. I called the doctor, he had a good chuckle over his mistake and said he would do a new prescription. Had he refused and said he wanted the patient to have 600 tablets I would most certainly have refused to supply this due to safety concerns (and probably reported him to the GMC for inappropriate prescribing).

Bloomburger · 16/10/2019 05:08

What if this wasn't an early request for a holiday but a calculated way of stashing a few tablets here and there to end their own life or god forbid someone else's?

You'd all be crowing about why it wasn't checked first by a doctor and then by the pharmacist 🙄.

Namechangeforthiscancershit · 16/10/2019 05:42

This information is important. Your previous dispensing history can help a pharmacist pick up any potentially dangerous interactions and help prevent overprescribing which can lead to overdose

Oh I don't doubt it for a second. So the pharmacist can see what he/she has dispensed to me in the past? You're a pharmacist aren't you? Can you see what I've had from other pharmacies too or just the branch you're at?

I'm much too boring to be hiding anything anything and safety always has to come first, I'm just fascinated!

Hederex · 16/10/2019 05:49

If it was a controlled drug, she's within her rights to do this, but I'd have expected her to phone the GP and find out why it was prescribed early.
We receive a couple of phone calls querying this stuff each week.

JenniR29 · 16/10/2019 06:42

‘Oh I don't doubt it for a second. So the pharmacist can see what he/she has dispensed to me in the past? You're a pharmacist aren't you? Can you see what I've had from other pharmacies too or just the branch you're at?’

On my system I can just see what you have had from my pharmacy in the past, most people stick with the same pharmacy so this is usually fine. I can ring the doctor for more information if I need it to make a clinical decision.

Original poster
bangheadhere40 · 16/10/2019 09:50

So an update! My OH went into the surgery last night and spoke to a lady on the dispensary. He HASN'T been taking over the dosage but was a little early ordering it. She looked at it for him as it was still being shown as 'accepted' by the doctor on his app. This is his regular doctor, not an online one.

She checked and the pharmacist hadn't brought it back to the doctor but had just scribbled on it that he can't have it and to try OTC without asking the Dr.

The dispensary lady was very helpful and is going to speak to the pharmacist today and have words, he is expecting a call later but according to her the pharmacist had no right to cancel it without checking with a Dr.

OP posts:
Disfordarkchocolate · 16/10/2019 09:57

I thought she didn't cancel it but just asked you to request in a couple of days?

HeadintheiClouds · 16/10/2019 10:02

Your doctors surgery has it’s own dispensary? Why didn’t they dispense on the spot, in that case? Hmm
It’s total bullshit that the pharmacist “had no right” not to fill the prescription (they didn’t “cancel” it, you know that perfectly well).
I think you are getting the whole thing a little confused...

Squirrelplay · 16/10/2019 10:04

My local pharmacist picked up that the GP had vastly over prescribed the dosage of my baby's reflux medication. She wouldn't give the meds to me until she could get a hold of the GP. It's their job OP, perhaps she could have been more polite about it but I imagine the reasons were valid?

If my pharmacist hadn't been on the ball my baby would probably have been knocked out with the strength of the medicine prescribed!

Mitebiteatnite · 16/10/2019 10:10

You're only entitled to have medicines dispensed from an in-house pharmacy if you live over a mile from the nearest pharmacy, so the op may not be able to do so.

JenniR29 · 16/10/2019 10:27

OP are you sure the pharmacy just didn’t order it because it wasn’t due? I tell patients if they are too early to request again in a few days. I know the surgery won’t issue prescriptions early so I don’t waste their time requesting them.

EstebanTheMagnificent · 16/10/2019 10:27

How can it be available OTC if it’s a controlled drug?

titchy · 16/10/2019 10:37

Because CLEARLY she knows more about medicine than they do ...

Actually pharmacists DO know more about how drugs interact with the human body than GPs.

GimmeBread · 16/10/2019 10:40

My DH has had this in the past with Boots repeat prescription service. He was two days early and they wouldn't give it to him. The reason he was asking early is because he happened to have finished his work early and popped in to save making a specific trip on the Saturday.

Crazy rules.

han01uk · 16/10/2019 10:42

This happened with me at my last collection. I always put them in a little early as hectic lifestyle and life limiting illness means I dint want to run out. The pharmacist also said I was too early by a week and to come back. I hate cutting it fine like this,but think it's a thing put in place to avoid people stockpiling (possibly because of brexit scaremongering) and ensure people are only getting what they actually need.

SophiaLarsen · 16/10/2019 10:44

Due to shortages and trying to avoid patients stockpiling, pharmacies and doctors have been advised not to issue prescriptions ahead of intended repeat dates.

Original poster
bangheadhere40 · 16/10/2019 11:11

So he orders online, the dispensary gets the doctor to sign it and then it goes to his nominated pharmacy, that's how it works round here.

So the dispensary was fine with the request, the GP was fine with the request, it was the chemist it was sent to that wasn't.

OP posts:
Original poster
bangheadhere40 · 16/10/2019 11:12

He doesn't request with the pharmacy, he requests with the dispensary who approve it, send it to the dr to sign it and then it goes as an electronic prescription to the pharmacy.

OP posts:
Original poster
bangheadhere40 · 16/10/2019 11:12

and she wrote on it to try OTC instead!

OP posts:
Original poster
bangheadhere40 · 16/10/2019 11:13

all without checking with a doctor....

It's still showing that it's been issued on his gp app so when he asks again it will show they have already done it which will cause issues with him getting it next time.

OP posts:
Disfordarkchocolate · 16/10/2019 11:23

I'm not sure you understand what has happened. You or your husband needs to go back to the pharmacist in a few days, not the GP practice. OTC is to be used in the meantime. All of this is standard practice and required to stop people abusing painkillers. Prescription drug abuse us widespread and all pharmacists are required to support efforts to reduce it.

FrauKnusper · 16/10/2019 11:27

I too am delighted to see PP, especially doctors, bigging up pharmacists and pointing out that they are highly qualified professionals who know more about drugs and medicines than literally anybody.

My DH is a qualified dispensing pharmacist, and it is public ignorance and attitudes like some of those expressed above that prompted him to say fuck it many years ago and move into pharma R&D.

JenniR29 · 16/10/2019 11:29

You don’t know that it didn’t get checked with the doctor OP. The pharmacist could have noticed it was early, phoned the doctor and they may have instructed to withhold it until it was due then suggested OTC medication in the mean time.

An electronic record may still say that the prescription has been issued but you wouldn’t know if it had been verbally overruled upon the pharmacist questioning it.

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