Pharmacist accused me of stealing DH's medication!?

[BobbyBiscuits]

I have been picking up meds for both DH and DM from this pharmacy for nearly 20 years. I am not their client personally (Reasons will become apparent).

DH suffered a severe trauma injury and was in hospital, he came out for a week then had to go back in.

In the week he was home he was prescribed some sleeping tablets. Only 7. (They are strong and quite well known at the mo as footballers take them)

I went to pick up his meds during this time but this one was missing. the next day he was back in hospital.
From his hospital bed, he then called the pharmacy to ask where they were, a trainee pharmacist confirmed they were indeed there.

Fast forward a week, when he comes home from hospital. He confirms with GP they sent the prescription to pharmacy. I go to pharmacy to pick up these tablets. They look blankly at me and say there is nothing for him.

I go home and he calls them again to find out what's going on.
The pharmacist proceeds to say "I gave them to Bobby".
No you didn't. "I saw my colleague giving them to Bobby'. No you didn't.

I was shocked to the core these people who I've known for years would accuse me of stealing. Never a good deed eh?

When that wasn't accepted they then said the trainee pharmacist was lying when she said the tablets were there?

Again with the third lie, he then said that as DH had been in hospital and on painkillers he must be confused, i.e has had them himself?

It's clear to me they seriously fucked up, either one of them nicked it or they gave it out to a stranger. Outcome is I cannot ever face them again and we had to have a new prescription sent to a different shop after days worth or agony just to get what he was prescribed. The GP fully believed us as if that guy has done this before?

So, would you report them to the BPC etc for misconduct? What they did was bang out of order and so obviously trying to cover their backs.

Has anyone any thoughts on this, or experienced something similar?

I reported a very angry pharmacy assistant in Asda last month. I will never return there.. Not sure how she got a public facing job. She did a dramatic flounce we envisage on mn.. Never saw one irl until that day.

All I did was ask calmly why I was told at 9 am my prescription was ready yet had stood for 40 mins at 2pm and was still waiting.. She shouted Oh My God as she flounced off...

I think it could be a genuine mistake. They possibly did believe they'd given you everything they should've done. I don't think the possible explanations they came up with are lies necessarily, they were trying to piece things together to see what went wrong.

Do what you want to do if it will make you feel like you're doing the right thing though.

I’d call the police.

Sounds like a mistake, you seem to be blowing it out of proportion. 😳

Can you put a complaint in writing and ask them to investigate? Surely there will be CCTV so they can possibly work out what happened... Just tell them what time you went in?

@TomeTome LOL. I honestly wanted to. (not really) It feels horrendous for someone to be with held their meds and me to get the blame.
I don't mind if it's a genuine mistake. Then say we made a mistake. But that is serious. You can't just give out heavy drugs to the wrong person or lose them, that's gross misconduct as a pharmacist. Saying "I saw him giving it to her". That's a lie. It could have life threatening consequences.

I agree with your last comment OP. There’s clearly something wrong and it does need to be investigated, whether it was a careless error or theft of a controlled substance. There’s a reason why you have to study and train to be a pharmacist, it’s not like picking a grocery order!

@Sparklfairy Yeah, I know the owner (leaseholder) of the shop. He's lovely and I've known him since me and his daughter were pals at primary. He sits there all day.
I'm thinking of approaching him about the cameras. I know for a fact that the camera will show I didn't receive it. I feel bad for the owner to involve him but it's absolutely bang out of order.

I had something similar. Had a text in the morning to say the prescription was waiting. Went at 2pm and was told it wouldn't be there until after 4pm. They said it happens frequently with some sort of automated system. I mean, they could have made mine up on the spot instead of telling me to come back. But I imagine they must be seriously pissed off about it giving out misleading info.

Agree with this. There could be serious consequences in the future, even if it's just carelessness.

Is it zopiclone?

@Hoplolly @WittyMotherhoodRelatedPun I know. It's serious stuff. Those meds are no joke. The fact they lied 3 times to cover themselves shows all I need to know. DH is taking it further. I'll fully support him.

@MorrisZapp Yep.

I don't see where they accused you of theft. Just that one of them thinks they saw you collect them when clearly you didn't.

I'd be wanting a FULL investigation into where the drugs have gone if the prescription went through and has now vanished.

Pharmacists have to be regulated in the UK, so I'd start by reporting the missing drugs as they've either been lost, given to the wrong patient, or one of the pharmacists has stolen them - either option isn't acceptable.

There could be a multitude of things going on. The staff member may have genuinely thought they gave those medications to you when you collected the others. The person who told your husband the medications were there may have been mistaken. Perhaps the prescription was sent by the gp but then never issued by the pharmacist. Deciding a staff member must have nicked them or given them to a stranger is quite a leap. If a controlled substance is unaccounted for, the pharmacist will absolutely be investigating this already.

@RatatouillePie Yes, that's the main crux of it. I guess personally I'm hurt and mortified as they are cowards for trying to blame it on me. I do not need these 2 men ganging up on me and trying to palm off their mistakes on me to my disabled husband. They were saying they gave it to me. He hasn't had it. That's me being accused of stealing.

When my husband collects my morphine from the chemist he has to sign for it

Did you not have to sign the prescription when you collected it? For payment or exemption? They would have to file it.

I know you didn't collect it but that is the normal procedure. I agree they would have CCTV. I would calmly speak to the owner I'm sure it's a misunderstanding.

@BobbyBiscuits I would report. Having cleaned a pharmacy attached to a Drs surgery and seen the amount of pills left lying in the floor every night standards should be far better than they currently are. (recorded over 40 miscellaneous pills one night dropped on the floor and left by pharmacy staff).

@Flopsythebunny @Hopebridge Thanks both, Yeah, this isn't a CD. If he has a blue script item then he signs the script and I bring it in. I'm the named person to p/u on his blue scripts if he has them. He's on exemption for ESA they just kind of know and do the forms themselves?
But they mislaid some heavy meds. Forget me being hurt or him being inconvenienced. People could die. Oh, I've already given you x..They need those things to stay alive and if a pharmacist can't be trusted to take instruction from a doctor then they should get a new job.

@Alphabet1spaghetti2 Thank you, we will be. OMG how grim. We are putting our medical necessities into these people's hands. Folk implying it's nothing. If your family member died because their meds had been "allocated' to the wrong person. It does not bear thinking about.

If you’ve never had to collect medication that is critical to care you probably can’t really appreciate how stressful a poor pharmacy can be. We have meds prescribed every 2 months. The script takes 5 days max to come, the pharmacy can take up to a week BUT sometimes it can take them 10 days so meds must be ordered 3weeks before the end of the two months. They can take several trips to actually get in full (once 5!). This all has to be achieved in between actually caring for the person. I’d change pharmacies @BobbyBiscuits its either incompetence or worse and you have other things to focus on.

@TomeTome Thank you. 100%. It is incredibly upsetting to feel like you are at the beck and call of quite frankly sadly in my case- ableist, misogynist pharmacists that seek power when they should not have any. And fail to keep people safe.
I hope you can get through it too, it really is a minefield.
Yeah, I really should try and focus on something positive.

@BobbyBiscuits totally agree. I said I was going to report (which I did with photo evidence) after finding a potentially used, uncapped needle on the floor of the nurses consulting room. They could see the problem not just for patients safety but also for those of us who clean these places. Finding pills on the floor of the pharmacy was almost a daily occurrence, quite often we used to find patient records left lying about and the nhs access cards left in computer keyboards with no he computers left unlocked and open on patient record screens. We all left very soon after and they still have trouble recruiting now.
Don’t be surprised if absolutely nothing is actually done. The nhs and associated practices is shockingly inept.