To expect to be able to leave meds at a chemist for several weeks?

[Letmeoff]

If press rate valid for several months, if the doctor sends direct to pharmacy why can you not leave them for a while? With the way life is and the fact the chemist allows 1 person a time and the queue is always long, I did not pick up my prescribed meds for six or seven weeks. I received a couple of tests- the latest last week saying they were ready. When I wenot to get them they said they’ve put them back on the shelf. So I’m without meds for a few days while I wait for doc to reissue prescription and send to chemist. But now I’ve had time to think - if prescriptions are valid for months why couldn’t they just refill the prescription and give it to me? Why do I need to get a new one - aibu expecting you be able to pick up after weeks 🤔

I've worked in pharmacy for six years and I'm so glad everyone thinks yabu. There just isn't the room to store uncollected prescriptions.

YABU. Massively entitled

YABU. They’re not a convenient storage facility for you to swan in whenever you’re ready.

If you actually need the medication you’re ordering then pick them up as soon as they come in, or don’t order it at all.

[quote SteeperThanHell]@CherryValanc
As a pharmacist I’m puzzled by what people mean by this:

“At a guess, because it had been filled and was a "x1”

If the pharmacy has dispensed and claimed then that is fraud. The other main optionA (as 90% of scripts are electronic) are that the pharmacist has marked as not dispensed (hard to retrieve) or returned to spine - easier to retrieve through the tracker, but has some issues if the GP doesn’t cancel (and not retrievable if the GP has cancelled).[/quote]
As not a pharmacist, I was guessing the OP had to get a new prescription because the original had been filled. I was guessing that a once a one-off (x1 as I've seen written on scripts) prescription has been filled/made-up/dispensed/prepared (or whatever the term is for putting together the prescription is) that it's possible that it can't be done again.

Don't know what a lot of you last paragraph mean mind you. OptionA, hard to retrieve and return to spine might be medical jargon that I don't know.

Are you saying that a prescription could be made to by a pharmacist many times. (Just as long as it's only given to the patient once)?

It's a pity you didn't enable voting on this one, OP.

Nuff said.

YABU

quite agree it’s unreasonably to leave them there for weeks - my question is if the prescription is still valid why can’t they refill it without needing new one?

If you agree that it’s unreasonable to leave them there for weeks, why is your thread title “AIBU to expect to be able to leave meds at a chemist for several weeks?”?

YABU they aren't a storage facility - many pharmacies are quite small and won't be able to store lots of reserved medicines. Some drugs also have use by dates which can be quite close (depending on what they are) they can't check that everything is still in date when they give if to you.

@CherryValanc

If a prescription isn’t collected as the OP said it is usually valid for 6 months.

At some point though the pharmacist will decide that the patient is probably not going to collect and will return the prescriptions items to stock. We usually try to contact by phone and send multiple text messages.

The prescription is still legally valid though as the patient has not had the medication.

The pharmacist will do one of a number of things and the most likely are:

• mark it as not dispensed and this is very hard to undo
• return it the NHS spine where data (including prescriptions) is held. The script would remain there and could be downloaded and dispensed again (because the patient didn’t collect the first time) within 6 months of the issue date - the pharmacist at this point could also contact the GP who could decide to cancel it.
• returning to spine does cause some problems especially if medication is changed and the patient changes pharmacy as it could be dowloaded and issued along with new meds which is a risk to the patient - we are generally asked not to do this in this situation - marking as not dispensed is much safer.

Hope that makes sense?

YABU.

A chemist isn't your own personal storage facility, until you can get off your bum to go and fetch them. Life is inconvenient for everyone right now, and if everyone followed your methods, it would be a total shit-show.
If they put them back on the shelf - honestly, serves you right.

YABU
Just because your prescription is valid for months doesn't mean the pharmacy should store your medicine for months

If you want to keep hold of your prescription and only go every few months then get the prescription from your doctor and keep it on a shelf at home until you want to use it.

why on earth did you order it 7 weeks early?! This is why there are shortages of medication

Why would you even order it that early? I’m surprised they even dispensed it.

I get a 6 monthly prescription. My GP must have issued a duplicate as I picked up my prescription in December and the dispensers sticker was dated June and it had sat there all that time.

Surely you can't need them if you waited that long?

Some meds are forfeit even if not collected that actual day.

@strappedup

why on earth did you order it 7 weeks early?! This is why there are shortages of medication

Our pharmacy absolutely won't allow this. It has to be ordered maybe three days before last supply runs out.

[quote ExclamationPerfume]@SteeperThanHell we used to store the medication for a year but send the prescriptions off if the patient was exempt.[/quote]
This is probably what happened then, as I have a medical exemption.

YABVVU !
You seriously expect them to either hold your medications or then redo the prescription just because you can now be bothered to go and get it.

You lack morals and personal responsibility OP

YABU

Pharmacies only have a limited amount of storage stage, I think that cancelling a prescription within 28 days if not collected, is more than reasonable!

YABU, pharmacies just don’t have the space to store prescriptions for weeks/months. You shouldn’t be ordering that far in advance anyway, either you’re not taking the medication correctly or you have a stockpile.

@KihoBebiluPute

I think the problem is that when the pharmacy gets the prescription direct from the gp they fill it immediately. they should have a system to be able to hold it back if you don't need the meds just yet. yabu to expect the pharmacy to give shelf room to your meds for weeks but iiittt should be easy enough for them to keep the unfulfilled prescription on-file for weeks.

The doctor doesn't issue the prescription until the patient requests it so surely the OP shouldn't request the prescription until they actually need it. Its not the drs or the pharmacists fault that the OP requested it and couldn't be bothered picking it up. I have a cream that lasts 3 months (can only be open for 3 months) I only order it every 3 months as I know i don't need it any earlier, I.dont request it the next month and keep it at the pharmacy for 2 months when I will need it.

Who ever asked about getting labels of the boxes, if you very gently run them under hot air For a few seconds the labels peel off, we use the hand dryer in our dispensary.
Also Yabu, in our pharmacy we keep scripts for 5 weeks then mark them as not dispensed, the only thing wee keep longer is for contraception and we keep those 3 months but that’s probably only 3 or 4 bags.

That's interesting re keeping contraception for longer.

I had a GP appointment to get the pill, this was just shortly before we all went into lockdown, didn't get round to collecting it straight away & eventually went into my local pharmacy & they told me it was more than 28 days since the prescription was issued so it was cancelled.

Far enough I reckon!

Yabu

Just to add, the reason why I didn't collect it straight away was that when I went to collect the initial prescription they only had 3 month supply in stock instead of 6, so I was given note saying they owed me 3 months.

My brilliant GP surgery then sent another prescription electronically for 6 month supply, didn't even have to speak with anyone, sent an eConsult via their website.

In support of our GPs during these times...they have most definitely NOT been closed (despite what some newspapers would like us all to believe!) during this pandemic!