Why such a delay at the pharmacy?

[BluetheBear]

For years I've only really been to our local pharmacy and any time I go in there it seems to take quite a long time to fill one prescription. It's not unusual to go in and wait 15 minutes (from handing them the prescription) for them to provide the item. This is the case even if there are no other other customers in and I can see 3-5 members of staff in the back.

I have never worked in a pharmacy so I don't know if it genuinely does just take a long time to fill a prescription or what goes on in the back whereas DH seems to think they take the prescription then keep you waiting while they do other things or chat.

AIBU to ask if you can shed some light on this if you are a pharmacist or work in a pharmacy?

My pharmacy has an app that holds all my prescriptions. I order online & it’s ready to pick up when I go in. Very quick. There are usually a few people at least hovering around the dispensary counter when I go in, it’s a very busy chemist.

It takes mine about 2 minutes.

But that's only cos it gets sent electronically then I go on a few days later and they just have to pick it up off the shelf and give it to me.

My local chemist is terrific and I am grateful to them for their speed and efficiency.

My pharmacy are really good.
Love them

OK, so I work at a large GP practice. On a typical day we can send maybe 600 to 700 electronic prescription requests out to pharmacies. Most of these go to the closest one. I've never worked in a pharmacy but my guess would be they are working through these.

As a PP said, an invisible queue. But a queue all the same.

For one item with no other walk in customers, it can easily be done in 2 mins. Wouldn’t normally keep someone waiting longer than say 10mins if busy.

Goodness knows as they are boxed up these days, not like when they mixed them. 4 or 5 at ours yet a week after nhs app says it's approved they can't even put 2 boxes in a bag

Just because it says approved on the app it doesn’t mean its actually been sent to the pharmacy, it just means it’s been approved to be issued by the prescriber.
It can still take another day or two to actually be sent to the pharmacy to be made up.

Our repeats through the website seven days minimum. I've left it that long and longer. It's never made up in advance these days. So I have a half hour wait. Play with phone while waiting.

OP is this a wind up? Tell me you don't float through the world thinking you are the only one that exists?? Hundreds of people will use ONE pharmacy. Nursing homes/ care facilities will use ONE pharmacy to supply all their residents medications. That one pharmacy will supply NUMEROUS nursing/care homes. All with ONE pharmacist on shift. And you actually expect them to drop what they are doing, to fill your script straightaway. Where do you live?? My local pharmacy in a rural area has a backlog of scripts so I can expect to wait 4 days from being prescribed something to having it ready for me.

These posts scare me. Because if it's real and not a windup, then wow...they really do walk among us don't they???

My GP surgery have a seven day turnaround for repeat prescriptions. My nominated local pharmacy and once it’s ready for collection I get a text. It’s efficient and the staff are very polite and pleasant, thank you very much Boots.

I’m old too so get free prescriptions which is even better

I get that it isn't the same as picking a loaf of bread off a shelf, but some do seem extremely slow without any perceptible reason.

The pharmacy I used to go to would always tell you it would be about 10 minutes when you took in your prescription and it was always more like 40 minutes or so. They encouraged everybody to save time by getting their GP to send their repeat prescriptions direct to them, waiting so many days to ensure they got it ready and then going in to collect it. However, if you did that, you would go in, they would confirm that they had the prescription in and only then look at it for the first time, which they said would take about 10 minutes, but was actually 40 minutes.

I moved to a different local one and got my prescriptions sent direct to them. I now go in and then leave 2 minutes later with my prescription - and this one has free parking. If I take a new (non-repeat) script in after an appointment, they take a maximum of 10 minutes.

The first one always seems to be staffed by youngsters with only one older person there - presumably the pharmacist. I wouldn't mind at all if they were being trained up on the job, but they only ever seem to bumble around helplessly and just get in the way - if I didn't know better, I'd think they were employed solely to act as a barrier of confusion between the customer and the pharmacist and to buy time. The second one has fewer people working there, but they don't stand around looking helpless: they actually appear to be doing, fetching, preparing, checking, advising or otherwise actually working. The assistants also do what they can do and then take a nearly-finished job to the pharmacist for her to check and confirm, rather than expecting her to do all of the basic admin work herself from scratch.

I think it works both ways: it's ignorant to assume that all pharmacists and assistants are lazy and slacking in what is obviously a very important job, but there clearly are SOME who just do whatever they like, whenever they like, and don't seem to value the customer's time at all.

Our prescriptions go electronically too.

I sometimes call to check they've got it and ask them to prepare it for us then I go in later.

The pharmacy and staff are great and well loved within our community.