Aibu to think pharmacy assistants shouldn treat your prescription as private?

[moonNback]

My GP sends my prescriptions to a small local pharmacy near my home. When I go in to collect it, the pharmacy assistant sometimes reads the prescription aloud to verify that it is what I was expecting. She does this even if there is a queue of people, and she does it to others too, so people can hear what medications others are collecting. Aibu to think she should treat this information as private and be more discrete?

That’s awful!!! Just check the address?

She should definitely be more discreet about it. Ask to speak to the pharmacist directly.

Tell the pharmacist she she check your address only.

You did a mistake in your OP , can you still edit it?

Do you mean they SHOULD treat your prescription as private? You can report your own post and ask MN to adjust the title @moonNback

But yeah, I HATE it how they read our address out in the pharmacy, and find it a really bad breach of privacy and personal data.

If it's the meds they are reading out, that is batshit. Never known a pharmacist do this... Although, if there is something they have to order in, they do say that aloud - which is annoying.

They definitely should be more discreet. I've never forgotten going in for the morning after pill, only to have a woman with a voice like a foghorn repeat it back to the whole shop.

I was my twenties and married and still felt absolutely mortified.

Pharmacies are bloody awful for privacy! Complain and switch.

As a pharmacy assistant I would never do this. I would confirm that you are ‘Joe Bloggs 1 Hill Street’ and then discreetly show you your printed EPS token to confirm you have everything you need. We do a lot of training surrounding privacy and GDPR so any good pharmacy assistant should know this is not in any way acceptable.

My current one gets you to write your address in a bit of paper when you collect your prescription, nice and discreet.

A pharmacist’s assistant did this to me once - roared my antidepressant right across the shop. I complained vociferously and now they all whisper at me when I go in 😂

I was a pharmacy dispenser in a past life - we were trained to be shit hot when it came to privacy. This would not have went down well in my pharmacy - the only thing we could say out loud was patient name when it was ready to be collected over the counter, we would then ask patient to clarify address/DOB. Medication should never be spoken about unless it’s in the consultation room/empty shop/anywhere that can’t be overheard by other patients. Truth be told, I don’t feel 100% comfortable with the patient sharing their address so openly, either and think this step should be tidied up.

That is appalling and a total breach of confidentiality. You should definitely make a complaint to the actual pharmacist. I would imagine they would be horrified too.

Yes, it’s absolutely wrong. They only should check you address. In our local Boots they give you a package and ask to check if it’s what you are expecting.
ask for a manager and say without naming a person that it’s a wrong way to do it and a breach of privacy.

My pharmacy they just say "hello Miss ThinWomansBrain" as I get to the counter.
jf it's someone new the pharmacist or senior assistant will call over the "Hello" and I just confirm my name to the assistant.

Based on the above posts, I'll stop being miffed that they use "Miss" instead of Ms"😂

Just to let everyone know, we've edited the title now.

She shouldn't have said any medication details out loud

Those who don't like the adress being confirmed, the pharmacy will more than likely have a number of paitents with the same name. They need to make sure it's your prescription (and not another Miss Smith for eg) being handed over. The address is the easiest way to clarify this. The alternative would probably pharmacies asking for some form of ID.

I hate all of that, what if you don't want the world to know what disease or illness you have, or meds you are on, or your address. I work with the public and stop the younger staff doing this all the time. I say just let me confirm part of your address only for security reasons, is it 25 The Grove, great ty, we do have to get their surname and pets name or phone number and I feel that is enough personal info to give out in a full waiting room of who knows who.In fact my GP calls out my first and last name and it makes me very uncomfortable every time. I don't want random people knowing any details about me. In fact if it was take a ticket and the GP calls out a ticket number I would be a lot happier.

I once picked up a prescription for 4 small dose diazepan pills to help with my fear of flying. Really small town, everyone knows everyone etc and the Pharmacy Assistant hollered loud enough for everyone to hear "That's your diazepan ready". Could of punched her as I was getting drug addict tutt tutting from all the nosey old bats ladies.

I was prescribed diazepam after my husband died. The pharmacy assistants made a point of not mentioning the name of the medication.

this was years ago but i got someone fired for that

i was giving clomid for the first time(fertility tablets for those that don't know)
doctors could prescribe them then, now its the hospital only

i live in a small Welsh village in the valleys of s Wales (think like what you see in films)

we were well known as we were the "alternative" family and a family member worked in the only fish shop for years

small village chemist, she saw the script and said loudly oh having trouble catching are we? clomid should do it
i wasn't amused at the time but didn't think anything of it

there was only 1 old lady there
this was 10am ish by 3pm outside the school gates so many strangers came up to me and said hope your tablets work soon

(wasn't even picking up my son, we home educate so not a member of the school was just accompanying a friend)

i asked the first how does she know and she said June heard at the chemist, told the baby group, (which is a church group in the hall) how wrong it is to interfere with gods way(laughable as im a atheist) and it spread from there with in hours

i did confront June(someone told me she's at the church ) and had a go and as the paster was there he heard it all

days later a knock on the door, the paster with a major apology saying June is no longer running the group

but the one who started it was the chemist lady so i complained officially as she was not using professional confidentiality
and she got suspended and finally fired as it came out she was telling everyone who was on what medication and i was the last straw as chemist heard about what June did

clomid took 4 years to work in the end, in that time period i had so many ask had it worked yet which was annoying when your going though fertility treatment that's not working

then when baby did come we made the local papers front page as the biggest baby bornin the area in years
he was 11lb11oz 29 inches(natural delivery as well)

we are still here and even now we are the alternative family and im known for june-gate even though june died
and son(hes 14 and 6ft 2 already)is known for the giant baby

DirectDoris, what a story. I can picture it all. Am very glad the tablets worked!

They changed mine to Ms but I had to get my NHS record updated at my GP first.

When travelling through Wyoming a few years ago, my sister had a yeast infection flare up just as she was finishing a course of antibiotics. We went to the chemist, which was also the (warm) hang out place for local retired men - they were yarning with the pharmacist as we walked in. He went down to the pharmacy end of the store and DSis explained her problem. He immediately called, very loudly, to the assistant who was dressing the window display
"Ethel, bring us a couple of tubes of the super strength thrush cream, will ya" and wiggled his eyebrows at the 'audience'.
DS, not a shrinking violet, brought out the antibiotics bottle and asked him, just as loudly, if he had ever heard of them, and would his cream work.
His turn to look embarrassed.
Asshole!

For all the reasons mentioned, and for avoiding shops full of ill people during Covid, we switched our pharmacy to an online pharmacy. We now order our repeat prescriptions via the NHS app, and they are delivered a few days later. Since then, the local pharmacy has modernised their systems but all prescriptions are now delivered from a hub, and it takes longer than using the online system.

@DIRECTDORIS what a great story! Tickled me as it reads like a soap opera, but it does demonstrate how careful pharmacists should be!