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?

@Alphabet1spaghetti2 That is awful. Can I ask who you were considering reporting to? I was thinking BPC. Are there other places to report them to?

I recently had this too..went to collect meds for my child, told they had been picked up the week before even though I had only just had the text to say they were ready. Was told they would have to go through all the prescriptions to look for my signature or whoever had collected them but when I went in the next time to see the result of the investigation, they even denied that the person I had spoken to worked there! She was probably a temp/holiday cover but even so that was not excusable and they just weren’t interested. I imagine it was human error but as with many places if “the computer says no” they won’t push themselves to find out why. I gave up and changed pharmacy!

Did you get multiple medications? I know sometimes they put them in a huge bag (I remember my mothers at the end of life and it would be massive). Sometimes when we got home we would see something was missing and call them. So it may be true they remember you picking up medications but didnt realize there was something missing. Although I have to say, our pharmacist always knew if they had given us something.

Also, I know they get in a tizz when something controlled goes missing or is not properly accounted for, so get super defensive. At one point one of the district nurses wanted to check mums end of life medications, and declared something was missing - accused us all in turn of nicking it before she discovered she had put it down beside her where she was sitting. It was a very unpleasant experience and we were seriously not impressed with her.

@BobbyBiscuits I complained to the practice manager and cqc as they were/are under them for performance reviews and to the local nhs trust. The pharmacy and nurse coming under the Gp surgery roof/banner/employment etc.
Today I would complain to everyone I could. As you appear to be dealing with a stand alone pharmacy not attached to a GP surgery then BPC might be your only option. Doesn’t harm to notify as many overseeing authorities as you can though. If it can happen at one place, it can happen elsewhere and can have serious consequences. The more professional bodies that are aware of such issues hopefully the more likelihood of preventative measures being out in place.

It sounds to me like something has been misunderstood somewhere along the line.
First of all, why did the hospital not give DH the meds he needed when they discharged him? When you collected DHs meds, you should have been told how many items you were collecting and there should have been a sticker on the bag showing what meds were inside. When you returned home, did you not notice the error? You say your DH phoned the pharmacy from his hospital bed and claims he was told the meds were there. I wonder why he would do that? If he was in hospital, surely the pharmacy there would provide sleeping tablets if he still needed them.
If indeed the meds were at the original pharmacy, they may well have been put back into the general meds as they had not been collected, and indeed as over a week had passed, your DH may not have needed them. Obviously the pharmacist wasn’t wrong when he stated that youd collected the meds, because you had. What he may not have been aware of is that one of the prescription wasn’t actually in the bag.

Surely all you needed to do was show them the text, which would have had a date when it was sent, to prove they were wrong?

@BobbyBiscuits where are you? Who is the BPC you are considering reporting them to?

Probs the British/General Pharmaceutical Council .

@Soontobe60 It sounds like you don't understand the situation. Yes the hospital gave him all the meds he was prescribed in the hospital including the ones he has at home (Not this tablet).
He received various meds in the hospital and they sent him away with a script for painkillers. That was the thing I picked up on the day they claim I stole the sleeping tablets.
The GP sent the prescription for the sleeping tablets ( for acute insomnia, so it was an emergency) to the pharmacy, they lost, misplaced whatever the meds. Then they blamed on me, him, the weather or every god under the sun. But it was their fault and it's a disgrace.
I've just had to take a taxi in the pouring rain to pick them up from another shop, he can't move, is completely bed bound.
I do not need this.

Yep I did this (!) but because the computer said it had been collected they said they’d have to go back through all the paper scripts !

@chiwwy That's it. British Pharma. Council. Their regulator.

@Soontobe60 There was no text. They never text him to say stuff is there. Another reason why they suck.

I take a lot of meds and it's unusual to pick up just one prescription. They usually come in a carrier bag or stapled closed in a large paper bag so DH or I pick them up and leave without checking
One day I was collecting just Oramorph. I knew as soon as I was passed the bag it was wrong. She'd printed the correct label but given me a 100ml bottle rather than a 500ml one. I know for a fact if would have been very difficult to sort had I left the pharmacy. I was shocked such an error could happen, especially with a CD. I always make sure we check now

There's no such thing, for a community pharmacy in the UK you want the General Pharmaceutical Council: https://www.pharmacyregulation.org/
For a hospital pharmacy it's the hospital PALs

@Scalby I Know. I feel like I should have taken the other packet out, and announced it contents to him, like hello you are giving me this. But as you say, sometimes theres a whole massive bag. Plus I'm just the messenger so to speak. This is not right as I p/u meds for him and my Mum, I can't trust them any more.

I would complain to whoever regulates pharmacies. This stuff must have a street value as it’s controlled.

@toomuchfaster Ah, thank you sorry. I was meaning that but I got the first word wrong. Thanks for clarifying.

Zopiclone isn’t a controlled drug now, hasn’t been for a couple of years.
OP you sound a bit overly dramatic. They’ve made an error by the sound of it. Pity you didn’t check the contents of the bag they gave you on the spot before leaving, I always do when I collect my husband’s meds as he’s on a lot and sometimes the one thing he’s needing the most isn’t there. I also don’t understand why you didn’t ring them as soon as you got home and it became apparent the zopiclone was missing. Didn’t he need one for that night?

Will the camera not just show you getting a bag? Do they cameras in the back of pharmacies which show them handling the tablets?

Who are the BPC?

Are you serious!? Think again. Tablets got mixed up at our local pharmacy, which meant the person receiving the strong tablets ended up in hospital and could have died.

I changed pharmacy because of something like this, although there's only me, l wasn't collecting for anyone else.
They swore blind l'd collected this particular prescription item. I knew l hadn't.
Lo and behold, two months later, when l collected that month's prescription, l was also handed the 'missing' one, dated from two months earlier.
The one they insisted l'd already had, and virtually called me a liar when l said l hadn't received it.
I switched to another very small independent pharmacy and have never had a problem since l moved to them seven years ago.

@errogant Thank you. Those mistakes are fatal. DH gets no meds, potentially dies, stranger gets them, potentially dies.
It's not Tesco.

@lto2019 I'm assuming legally they have to have cameras in the area where they distribute the meds. Your right in that he handed me a bag. I think the camera should show the bloke behind the scenes putting x y z or not in bag as surely they need to for legal and regulatory purposes?