Being told to go the pharmacy for cystitis by doctor receptionist

[Musica7474]

I have cystitis. I’ve had it before and had different anti biotic for it- sometimes 2 as it has been resistant to treat.

Ive left it to try and sort it self out for a few days by doing all the right things. It hasn’t.

Receptionist told me pharmacies now deal with cystitis and will advise me. I don’t need advice and I don’t want to be talking about my wee and symptoms in a packed pharmacy.

The receptionist made me feel awful for not wanting to go to the pharmacy and insisting on a doctor’s call( I’d have been happy with a prescription being left at the desk and no call just a gp looking at my records to check which anti biotic is best for me). She said I could have a call this time.🤔

Cystis can be really unpleasant and not great if not treated . Anti biotic are expensive and it’s not great to take several, I don’t think women should be made to feel like shit for wanting treatment for it and a gp to look at her records.

Precisely.

Certain people don't care about anyone else's (potentially terminal) conditions because they don't want to wait a few minutes in a Pharmacy queue. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Anyway, I don't think your comprehension skills are really as good as you believe because I have posted, more than once, I have used the Pharmacy system previously to obtain antibiotics for UTIs prior to being excluded due to my medication for my other condition. Further, I look forward to the day I am no longer excluded.

It may have been explained multiple times, but from the documents I'm reading, OP meets exclusion criteria too (or, at least, given that I don't know what it actually says in her notes or whether the pharmacist would be able to access them, she very probably meets them, and given what she's said it seems likely that the "oh dear, one-off uncomplicated UTI" antibiotic dose would end up not working anyway, requiring more valuable professional time).

From my perspective, OP is one of the people that this system is designed to free up appointments for.

I find your attitude bizarre. This pharmacy service is designed to be quicker and more convenient for the patient, and make better use of existing NHS resources, by providing a few carefully-selected basic treatments in a heavily manualised way, to specific groups of people with a few carefully-selected, simple, one-off complaints. If you start insisting on pushing all the more complicated patients like OP into pharmacies before letting them see the doctor you'll only clog up the pharmacy system unnecessarily and end up using even more resources than before.

Poor bloody pharmacists having to deal with all the additional work from "Pharmacy First" with no extra pay or additional staffing. 😣.
It's a terrible initiative and 2 pharmacy's have closed in my town because they are no longer making any profit.
It's the same story with filling blister packs for the elderly/inform patients. The pharmacies get no extra pay for this, it takes ages and it's risky. Many now just refuse to do it and who can blame them?.

What a ridiculous post. Also you don’t seem to care about other people when you regularly piggy back appointments which you are not supposed to do.

YANBU. You will be sent back to the GP. The pharmacist will not be looking through OP's records and choosing suitable antibiotic. They are only treating uncomplicated cases The receptionist is wasting everyone's time by refusing to make a GP appointment.

We'll need to agree to disagree.

I am basing my comments on my experience in that I have experienced the Pharmacy route in the past (before I was excluded due to other health issues) when first line antibiotics were not suitable for me. I was prescribed the antibiotic that worked for me, based on my medical notes.

I never felt the need to demand to speak with a GP.

However, as pointed out by OP and her friend, I do now have the opportunity to speak with my GP because I have a bespoke (in their minds) system in place for me. It's not bespoke, of course, it's a system many people have in place when they are being monitored for a more serious condition i.e. the opportunity to update the GP with other ongoing issues when the GP enquires.

Indeed. Ever heard of the holistic approach? The one where the GP enquires about your other conditions whilst seeing you about another? 😂

'never felt the need to demand to speak with a GP'

Request. It is a request. I don't often tbh, can't remember the last time I saw a real life GP, nurses do the job just fine. My point has always been if I want to see one I will indeed request it and I certainly won't be discussing my bodily fluids at the local pharmacy either.

And, I'm out of here .... have a good one laydeeeez 😉

How recent was that experience? Because it's possible you're talking about an entirely different system, perhaps a regional one that was more flexible about which drugs were prescribed. The documentation I'm looking at (for Pharmacy First, which started about ten weeks ago and is probably the system the OP was being directed towards) only allows for a very short course of first-line antibiotics, and anyone like OP for whom that's not suitable must see their GP.

Pretty sure he’s “indulging” you.The new scheme didn’t start until 31st Jan so not sure how you were merrily having your complex cystitis treated by the pharmacy years before your bespoke gp appointment system.

I’ll just be happy for the odd gp appointment when I need it. I’m clearly entitled to that and not being unreasonable going by government guidelines which the receptionist omitted to point out.

It's not regional, it's national. I'm in Scotland.

I went to the pharmacy for it after being in agony and unable to even sit comfortably.
I’d heard about the pharmacy scheme so I went and had to tell a male pharmacist what was wrong, thinking I’d get antibiotics as I had before, only to be given some sachet to dissolve in water which didn’t really help.

This is not true for all pharmacists. Many will indeed look at notes and choose the suitable antibiotics.

We've had pharmacists as part of our practice for many years. This new scheme is just one thing pharmacists can do.

Not if they are going this as part of the pharmacy first scheme. They will be following a protocol and are only treating uncomplicated UTI's and only giving one antibiotic.

A prescribing pharmacist can help. You can access your own medical records on the nhs app to see which antibiotics have been prescribed

As I explained this new scheme is additional things they can do not instead of.

Yes, some pharmacist prescribers can prescribe for urinary tract infections but certainly not all, particularly community pharmacists. The receptionist hasn't referred to a specific independent prescriber pharmacist in the practice or a specific pharmacist elsewhere but said that "pharmacies now deal with cystitis " which means that she is referring to the pharmacy first scheme.

Out of interest do you know what funding they have received, enough for say 2 fulltime extra staff to process these samples?

Today our busy pharmacy seemed even busier with the pharmacist seeming to be in the consulting room and not actually dispensing.

I wonder if they have had funding <surely> they can then choose to spend it on what they like, so instead of staff to deal with the massively increased workload perhaps they use funds for other things and just let that queue get ever longer?

Someone please tell me no, funding is ring fenced to pay for extra staff.

They get £15 per consultation, plus a monthly amount (I think £1,000) if they do a minumum number of consultation. Not a huge amount and it won't be ringfenced.

So the people who suffer are the ones just wanting to pick up a prescription. Empty gp waiting rooms and overfull pharmacies, it is completely batshit.

Yes, I suppose people without uncomplicated infections may get treatment a bit quicker by going to a pharmacist rather than their GP practice but many others will be referred back. I wouldn't want to be a pharmacist working in a chemist shop at the moment either.

Yes, I agree and I have sympathy for OPs situation. It's just there's been so much misinformation on here about what pharmacists can and can not do that I just wanted to make that clear.

YABU. You were offered medical support. The pharmacist can prescribe antibiotics for this. In the unlikely event there isn’t a consultation room, tell the pharmacist you need to speak to them privately.

Your pharmacist is not going to be surprised you wee. We all do. They probably won’t even the that shocked to learn you have a fanny. You are making this into a much bigger deal than it needs to be.