… to think that my prescription should be waiting for me to collect?

[MereDintofPandiculation]

AIBU to think that a prescription passed by the GP to the pharmacy nearly a week ago should be ready for me to collect? Instead, I was told it would be ready in 20 minutes, and, when I returned, it was missing an item. Because I’ve been given pert of the prescription, I’m told I can’t seek out the missing item from another pharmacy. DH has had missing items on his last two prescriptions.

Is this just how it is nowadays, or should I move to a different pharmacy?

Next time you're at your doctors, ask for the prescription to be printed out and given to you in person. Then take it wherever is the best place to provide all items. I live near a city centre so my default is a large Boots. As for now, won't they give you the part of the prescription that they have in stock? Could you ask for the full prescription back to take elsewhere? If no to both, can you try your doctors again and explain the situation?

It should be ready.

As to missing items, pharmacies are finding it increasingly difficult to source drugs and supplies . I was collecting a prescription for FIL and the two people infront of me both had items on prescription that the pharmacy could not provide because they can't get them.
One was tablets- the pharmacist said they could not get them in the dosage the Dr had prescribed and have not been able to for weeks.The second was a flavour of a medicine for reflux for the woman - she had been prescribed the mint flavour and was told they won't be getting it in again and will only have aniseed from now on- which she didn't want.
The pharmacist was cagey when they asked why- just said supply is difficult these days.

I don't have any of this fuss. I clicked on my repeat collection option on the nhs app after midnight last night and I had a text this afternoon to say the pharmacy has it now and to collect it after 48hrs or just give them a call if it is more urgent than that. I've never left without all my meds.

We have a chemist near us who do this, I changed chemist.
it was Lloyds, I’ve not yet been to a Lloyds chemist that weren’t crap

Is it Lloyds? They kept making a real mess of my prescriptions so I moved.

It may well be worth trying another pharmacy next time, as we’ve found different companies have supply issues with different things. So Boots would struggle to source something that the independent place along the road could get no problem, and vice versa. If you have the nhs app you can change your nominated pharmacy on there, or you can do it in a pharmacy directly.

We have also been having major staff issues as the Aldi nearby is paying the same for shop staff as our trained dispensers, and they put up with far less hassle and stress! So this may have an impact on waiting times.
One of the surgeries local to us has also had staff issues and at present we are looking at a 10 day turnaround from a prescription being requested to it actually being done. It’s just sheer volume of work.

I don’t know if any of these may apply in your location, but it could be many issues. The supply chain has been screwed for months, it’s been a nightmare when all we want to do is serve the customers tbh.

The missing items are due to supply issues. Last time my pharmacy couldn't supply one item on a script and couldn't print the script off for me because I'd had the rest of the items, I called the GP and they issued an alternative prescription, which was available. So instead of a 60mg tablet twice a day I got 40mg three times a day.

YANBU

I'm sure mostly down to supply issues however having changed my own pharmacy just before Christmas I would say some pharmacies are better at dealing with these problems than others.

Our local Boots is like this. Even after a week they aren't ready or need che kìm or they are waiting for stock. The Well pharmacy over the road due at seem to have any issues so we've changed now. Boots staff knew us well so I miss that aspect but I can't be doing with ordering repeats prescriptions 2 weeks in advance of needing them.

Over the past few months pharmacies have been inundated with prescriptions. Both repeat and accute/walk ins. Medicine shortages have really created a massive backlog. The other day there was 201 un dispensed prescriptions. (And also 113 un collected prescriptions)

Depending on the set up some pharmacies also take 111 referals. Which can take the pharmacist 30 mins plus to deal with. So that stops any other medication being checked unless more than 1 pharmacist on site. As needs 2x checks before being given to the patient.

We have to prioritise accute prescriptions and walk ins over repeat. Some times we don't have the medication avaliable. So time is taken to search our suppliers and order. Some patients then either agree to wait till the medication is available and take part of their prescription. Or have the prescription returned to the System. We then have to undispense the items we have not given out. This also takes time. Some patients have Blister Packs made of their prescriptions these require all meds to be labeled and dispensed. Then split into days am/pm also a description of the tablet needs to be written. All this THEN still needs to be individually counted by the pharmacist. Yet again takes 45 mins atleast.

yes ideally once we recipient your prescription it should be a simple chain of events and should not take more than 20 mins. But staff shortages/supplie issues/high service demand means this is not always possible. I really wish it was quick and simple but the amount of abuse ive witnessed because "the doctor told me to be here at 3pm" "why isnt the item in stock, you are responsible if my child dies"

I've had doctors write prescriptions for items that have been discontinued years ago. But it's still the pharmacies fault they don't have it.

The fault really is due to money.

Community pharmacy is in crisis at the moment. There are huge issues with stock and medicines supply chains and issues with how the pharmacies are reimburses by the government for the medicines they supply.

A significant number of dispensed prescriptions remain uncollected and it's unethical to have meds sat on the shelf awaiting collection when another patient may need them and use them sooner.

Additionally, the price of medicines is fluctuating wildly. The pharmacy doesn't actually get paid for the drugs until you collect the prescription and they send it for payment. They could buy tablets in Feb for £50 a box because they are in short supply and prices have risen and then you don't collect until March when the price may have dropped to £5 a box because another manufacturer has started making them. They'll only get paid the March price, regardless of what they paid when they bought them. So turning stock around quickly / not having a big lag time is the only way they can protect themselves against a loss.

Each prescription is a complete document, you can't have part of it from pharmacy A and part from pharmacy B as only one of them can submit the form for payment.

It's an awful environment to be working in. Daily abuse from irate customers and bound by red tape, ever changing rules and out of date legislation.

No it isn't like that everywhere. My pharmacy is marvellous. They truly are.

I did in the past live somewhere where the pharmacy was also what was known as a dispensing chemist for which they get paid more. It was poor. Really dire. They managed to mess up my not strange routine prescriptions often. Only had bits of it, didn't have it in the formulation needed.

One occasion I persisted and asked for my prescription to take it elsewhere as they could not provide me with the items. After a tussle I got my prescription. Go back and ask for it. It is your prescription.

I get mine in the post from Lloyds - they sometimes email me to say they are waiting for stock, but they remind me to order in plenty of time. I'm really glad I changed to the online/postal arrangement.

Try an online provider. Chemist direct have been fantastic every time I've used them.

I tend to ring mine before I go in, just to check. They are so great when I have needed advice or something has needed hunting down , so I don't mind the odd delay when they are busy in exchange for that very personalised service.

There are two parts to this:

1. Why wasn’t your prescription dispensed and ready after having been held for a week?
2. Why the problem with missing items?

The second part is generally covered by other posters

The first part is to a degree connected to the second
Pharmacies don’t know when someone is going to come in and collect.

They might dispense and have it ready, but if they dispense on Monday but you collect on Friday then they might be short of one drug for someone collecting on Tuesday. If yours isn’t already packaged then they can dispense to the other person on Tuesday, and getting deliveries on Wednesday and Thursday

Each pharmacy in the area could have different stocks so a problem with a particular drug could be on the shelf ready at another
When you have a few items on one prescription it compounds the problem as others have describe

You can have the option of taking your printed prescription from the doctor and then collecting at any chemists, but that’s two visits - if time is a problem then multiple visits add to it
When it’s directed to a pharmacy then a step has been saved, but you run the risk of unavailability if you’re running out on a repeat or it’s a first prescription.

Ideally if it’s sent directly then the pharmacy has the earliest notice of what items are required, but the risk remains that others jump the queue on you and if there are supply delays

My local pharmacy (lloyds) was useless too. I swapped to Pharmacy2U. Order on line to GP. Postman brings it all a few days later.

Since we left the EU stock doesn't work like it used to do is the short answer.

The people who turn up get the in stock items rather than turning them away when the medications they need are in a bag on a shelf earmarked for another patient.

This is how it is until we start rejoining the EU.

I've never had a problem with the pharmacist putting my prescription together when I turn up, for the reasons given by @tommika. There has only been one occasion when they couldn't give me the full prescription, so they gave me what they had plus a note that I could present to get the rest once they had restocked, which was only a day or two later.

My local pharmacy used to have a big problem with electronically delivered prescriptions. They would get them ready, but 60% of people didn't collect them (they put up a sign).

They decided to stop processing/preparing electronic prescriptions until the patient (or their representative) arrived to collect it because they had zero storage space to hold the bagged-up prepared prescriptions.

I have my prescriptions delivered to me now, it's a much better service (I appreciate other areas may have a different opinion).

@MyKitchenRules
We have to prioritise acute prescriptions and walk ins over repeat.

Can I ask why that is?

This whole topic makes me anxious because if DH couldn't get his medication he would be seriously ill. Well he'd be dead if it suddenly was no longer available at all, but shorter term he'd very ill.

I now reorder my prescriptions separately as if they only have one item, they won't give me the script to go elsewhere so I'm held to ransom until they get it in stock.

We can only give your prescription back if we haven’t dispensed any items to you that you’ve collected so if you’ve had all of your tablet A and tablet B medication and fetched it we can’t give the script back for tablet C which is out of stock.

We process all electronic prescriptions as
soon as we do a download and receive them and we store a lot of scripts ready for collecting. If we don’t have one of the medications we still dispense all of the others and then order the missing with our suppliers. We don’t prioritise and we don’t keep prescriptions undispensed unless we can’t fulfil it.

I would question when the script was actually issued by the GP as we’ve had no end of trouble with them not being issued/issued hours later than they should’ve been or sent to the wrong pharmacy.

Our prescriptions now take about a week to collect.
Bizarrely, they started to take longer after the introduction of the Electronic Prescription Service!

Our local pharmacy is wonderful but , annoyingly, our GP practice just can't get their act together and many's the time that our pharmacy has had to chase the surgery . To be fair, it's a common complaint re our GP practice and on a couple of occasions we've had to call 111 for an emergency prescription, as directed by our pharmacist.

It's bonkers.

Complaints to Practice Manager are met with a 'yes, sorry about that... we'll chase it up with the doctors.'

I had this as well. I moved to a local pharmacy because at least I could find them when they screwed up.