The time it blessed takes for a prescription to be filled?!

[Looklively]

Am I the only person that can’t quite understand why, when there is no queue, and apparently three members of staff plus the pharmacist (hiding) behind the counter it still takes an eternity for someone to serve me, and then another lifetime for them to fill the script?? I wouldn’t mind but this happens every single time at every pharmacy I’ve tried recently, and I was collecting medication that had been prescribed and sent by the doc (he checked it had been sent whilst I was at the surgery) at least four hours previously - I even received a text to say that it was ready! And why, when all I’m doing is confirming my name/ address are they so damn surly? Am I just really entitled for thinking that these people don’t really understand the idea of expediency/ efficiency/ customer service? It takes less time to collect my orders from next - and they are almost always friendly and usually only have one or two people on hand.

@StScholastica

YABVVVU. My DSis is a pharmacy dispenser, she is run off her feet, has been coughed on all through covid by people who go there because they can't get in to see the GP. She has had a knife drawn on her by a drug addict. Has been on duty when the pharmacy was robbed (by someone driving a truck through the wall). On top of that she gets constant abuse for not hurrying someone's order through. All of this for minimum wage.

Well, that's horrible for her and an indictment on the UK today but has nothing to do with giving a minimum time on how long a prescription will take to be filled.

I get a text from the chemist that dispenses my prescription and it’s ready to collect when I get there. Sometimes I can even get one made up quicker before the prescription arrives from the doctor, if I’m desperate for my medication.

The previous chemist would take around 15 minutes, so it does depend on the chemist. Try changing.

I finally found an efficient helpful pharmacy in my town, it's a revelation compared to the rest of them.

They've had to order items in before, go to pick them up a few days later and they've given them to someone else!! All to do with cash flow as this was well before Covid

I see my GP, I come out and around 10-15 minutes later my prescription is ready. Can't complain.

YANBU, I dont understand it.

I waited 5 mins to be seen and then another 30 minutes today for it to be 'filled' at an empty counter. The prescription was sent 4 days ago.

Just grab the bag, read the list, put the product in the bag. Hardly rocket science and I dont understand why it takes so long.

@PaddleBoardingMomma

It was a pharmacist who potentially saved my fathers life by spotting a mixture of tablets he was on that could have been catastrophic, not the doctor who prescribed them, or the locum he saw when he started feeling unwell, or the a and e doctor when he took another turn for the worse after starting the second medication, but the pharmacist who just "bungs stuff in a bag and can count to 23"

I'm shocked half of the posters here don't understand what a complex and vital job they do. Shameful, really.

No one is saying pharmacists don't do a worthwhile job. But taking a prescription from you so you think its going to be a 5 minute wait when actually they know it's going to be 20+ minutes doesn't make them heroes. And for some of them to say they deliberately go even slower to make everyone wait longer, just aggravates complaints rather than diffuses them.

There is no pharmacy in my village. So all our prescriptions are delivered to the village Spar shop. There is never a queue, and you just pop in and collect them when you pick up your morning newspaper. Excellent system!

I go to a pharmacy where the bulk of 'ready' prescriptions are on shelves customers can see (in their bags obviously). There are hundreds. Knowing that most of them are being picked up within a day or two gives you an idea of the scale of the work involved - and that's without the bags and bags going to care homes etc which are kept elsewhere.
I know that they also try to bring the obviously acute prescriptions to the front of the queue if they can - for things like antibiotics and steroids for asthma and COPD patients.
I'm very lucky in that they are open for at least 16 hours a day, sometimes longer.
I usually call ahead to see if my prescription has been dispensed, but sometimes they are too busy to answer the phone. I think they are fabulous (and have witnessed patients ranting at them because the doctors have 'fucked up' again).
Yes, I'm sure that there will be an odd mistake happening, but it's not always the pharmacy's fault. And yes, every prescription has to be double-checked.
To assume that your prescription is more important than someone else's (who may be acutely unwell) is a bit selfish in my view. Waiting isn't ideal for me at the moment as I have horrible parasthesia in my legs which comes on after a minute or two of standing, but I'm still prepared to wait.

Oh, and I forgot to add, when DC1 was ill with a life-threatening disease, we often had to wait for four hours plus for their medication, which we could not have got at a normal pharmacy, so could only get it from the hospital pharmacy - that is something that should be improved, not by blaming the staff there, but expanding the pharmacy and employing more people.

My local pharmacy never seems to have the meds ready. However long you leave it, and whatever text you get, they never seem to start preparing it til you’re in the pharmacy itself 🤷🏻‍♀️

@toomuchfaster

They will be dealing with 100s, if not 1000s of prescriptions every day. Yours is not special unless its for end of life medication. A text from the surgery merely means they have sent it to the spine, not that the pharmacy has even received it never mind processed it. And they are probably surly because the public are horrible. Even more so since Covid.

And the chances are that most of those people are ill so they have the possibility of catching something hideous....that might just be covid. People will be coughing ,mouth breathing and wearing their masks under their chins ,on their heads , under their noses. They will have to work out whether its worth asking someone politely to stand back a bit, or put a face shield on multiple times a day. They will have people wanting to show them rashes, boils, weird lumps all day. Thry will have people shouting and yelling about drugs they absolutely know they are to collect from here. Then when they realise they should actually be at a different pharmacy they say "Well cant you just do it here. I dont want to walk down there".No you knobs they can't. Oh and then there's the methadone lot. Having to stand and watch someone take it so they cant pretend to swallow it and then spit it out into a bag to sell to someone else. Or have them sit there long enough that they can't throw up into a bag and sell it as 'vomit methodone'. Can't imagine why they might sometimes be fed up Op.

We put our repeat prescriptions in at least a week before we collect them to try and avoid a wait and I thought help the staff out. I go to collect and they are never done. Have to wait whilst they put them up.

I used to work as a dispenser in community pharmacy. Full time work for £15k a year. Responsible for customer service, dispensing prescriptions accurately, restocking the shelves and on two occasions- cleaning human shit off the walls of the methadone booth.

I now work in hospital pharmacy which is 21k a year and I don't have to deal with the general public. Or shit.

You certainly know whether its going to be closer to 30 minutes than 5. Maybe you do get emergency prescriptions and they take priority but they don't prevent a time estimation.

Well obviously they do if you can’t predict how many are going to come in during any set period!

Oh and then there's the methadone lot.

The methadone lot, lots of pharmacy staff horribly judgemental to people, horrible horrible horrible.

The levels of entitlement and self-importance on here is laughable.

So many posters expect to be able to march into the chemist and be immediately served, completely ignoring the comments from people who actually work in one; their prescription is of the utmost importance, staff should drop everything to deal with them.

I'm not sure what people want from this thread any more. Pharmacy workers have explained multiple times the amount of work they have, the pressures they face and the potential consequences of making a mistake. They've explained why giving people a waiting time isn't always possible and why things don't always go to plan.

Yet people are still making the same ignorant 'I don't understand why it takes so long, it's not rocket science, it's just sticking tablets in a bag' type comments.

The system is broken, this is not an excuse to abuse the staff within it or come on Internet forums to make derogatory comments about a job you clearly do not understand.

My local chemist is friendly and obliging but soooo slow. I have to go there today to collect a prescription that the GP sent them a week ago . I can guarantee you they will spent ages faffing, looking in loads of drawers and appearing to have lost it.

I have a very common name - think John Smith. A few weeks ago, they handed over
To me the prescription of another John Smitb. I only noticed because the middle name was different.

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

My local pharmacy never seems to have the meds ready. However long you leave it, and whatever text you get, they never seem to start preparing it til you’re in the pharmacy itself 🤷🏻‍♀️

That’s my experience too! I usually wait 3 days from the prescription being sent to the pharmacy (having told the pharmacy when I’d be back), to give them time to get to it but invariably, when I arrive, it hasn’t been started, which means a 25 minute wait, on average. Even worse is when I’m told “we haven’t got any of your medication, you’ll have to come back tomorrow”. This is what finally made me stop using the local pharmacies and switch to one who delivered.

Prescriptions get sent straight from surgeries. Much more now since covid and the way we do things has changed.

If they are filling a script they won't be able to stop midway to serve.

Pre covid I was always told to come back in 10 minutes if I said I'd be waiting when asked. (I'd wait for antibiotics etc).

But it was encouraged for long term meds to drop a script and come back later that day or next day.

I phone before I go to pick up Ds meds to check they are ready. His standard GP order is 7 items so I appreciate it will take time for it to be sorted.

He gets meds from 4 different places so I have learnt how to organise things best fo get them with minimal stress!

The best though is the one that is on special order for a hospital pharmacy which is just automatically posted to us each month! That system I love.

@toomuchfaster

They will be dealing with 100s, if not 1000s of prescriptions every day. Yours is not special unless its for end of life medication. A text from the surgery merely means they have sent it to the spine, not that the pharmacy has even received it never mind processed it. And they are probably surly because the public are horrible. Even more so since Covid.

This.

I feel for the staff and agree with many PP that they have been covid hero's.

The system itself could do with an overhaul though. There is way too much paper involved! Even though my script is electronic it still ends up as a piece paper in a huge box that has to be found manually.

Even the filled prescriptions seem to be stacked in only a vaguely logical system! There's usually a bit of chat about various
places it could be before it can be found.

It always feels like they could benefit from a couple of extra heads too.

Like I say, not doubting the hardworking staff, but the whole system needs to be updated. Especially if demand has grown and if people are finding their life-saving drugs are difficult to access.

@ButtockUp

I think some posters are forgetting that the OP has said that she receives a text to say that her prescription is ready.

Was it a pharmacy text or a GP text?

GP surgeries have been sending out texts saying your prescription is ready meaning the script has been signed by them and ready to be dispensed. Of course patients have been taking that as ready to collect from the pharmacy.

I used to work in pharmacy, when I started I was so full of positivity and good energy. Five years later and all that was gone. I soon came to see a darker side in people. I faced misogyny and xenophobia. I got verbally abused and a colleague at the first lockdown had a man spit on her face because she told him that unfortunately he had to wait until someone left before he could get in as the pharmacy was at full capacity.

To all those complaining about pharmacy staff, please, do go and work in a pharmacy for a couple of months. In fact it should be mandatory that everyone in their lifetime should work at least once in a pharmacy. It's a mentally and emotionally exhausting work.