That if urgent care prescribe antibiotics and chemists are closed that they should provide them

[Diversion]

Husband stabbed his hand (just a small wound) with a Stanley knife at work on Tuesday, he said he cleaned it. By the time he got home from work last night the top of his hand and his fingers were red, hot, swollen and obviously infected. He went to urgent care who prescribed antiboitics, but by the time he got to the late night chemist it was closed as was the pharmacy at Tesco. I phoned urgent care who told us all the chemists on their lists were closed and to wait until this morning. I asked if this was safe, they just said it it got worse or he started to feel unwell to come back. By this morning when our local chemist was open his whole hand was swollen as was part of his arm. I am keeping a close eye on him as his hand is a mess and he had a slight temperature earlier. Surely urgent care know that chemists are closed and should provide antibiotics in cases like these.

There’s usually one open for emergencies.

round me they do it on a rotating basis and put it in the paper who it is and when.

There is generally a late night pharmacy but you may have to travel.

There simply wouldn’t be enough room to ‘stock’ all the medications that are prescribed at urgent care, just like a GPs surgery couldn’t carry stock. Pharmacists in the hospital generally finish at 5.

I do kind of agree with you if you actually live in an area that doesn't have late night pharmacy's iv been given a box of antibiotics in a&e a couple of times so I dont understand why urgent care is any different but then if they did it as standard people would go for free prescriptions.

There’s a 24 hour pharmacy next door to our A&E department.

Our urgent care is connected to a hospital and their pharmacy is 24/7

Where is your urgent care?

Did you not just go on Google and searched for a 24 hour pharmacy ?

That's really handy. This is again like I always say the nhs is a massive postcode lottery. Monday to Friday we can get prescriptions until 11pm, Saturday about 8 and Sunday dont get sick. But like I said previously out a&e will give out boxes of antibiotics or at least dose you up to keep you going until a pharmacy opens. Utc is only open until 10 in our area so never really been an issue apart from I dont know what happens on a Sunday

"There simply wouldn’t be enough room to ‘stock’ all the medications that are prescribed at urgent care, just like a GPs surgery couldn’t carry stock."

Surely to Betsy they could carry a few boxes of amox-clav and the like. The tiniest, shittiest little vet practice in the country can manage that so why not docs?

The last time I took DS to an out of hours gp service was when he had an abscess.

He was seen at 7.40pm. The nearest pharmacy with Kate night opening was going to close at 8pm. We were about 15 minutes away. To my relief they had the antibiotics that DS was prescribed at the ooh drs.

it’s definitely not an unreasonable expectation that if your symptoms need out of hours attention anything that is proscribed to treat them also cannot wait.

Iv just googled where is my nearest 24hr pharmacy and its 1hour 40 minutes away

I agree and I'm sure they used to. I had to find an out of hours pharmacist a few weeks ago and trying to establish which one was actually open online from the info available was really hard. However also later ended up in A&E where then had another strange situation, very ill, given first does of medicine because it's urgent, but we can't do you a prescription as it's out of hours so you will have to come back for the rest tomorrow. WTF!

Gosh, I thought i would play around with finding out where mine is, we are on holiday, its 120 miles away

That is utterly disgraceful.

The urgent care centre do carry common medications. They just don't like to give it out. But they have stocks of the common antibiotics

We dont have a 24 hour pharmacy. The nearest late night pharmacy closes at 9pm and they had just closed as he arrived. The pharmacy open to the public at the hospital was also closed. I really understand that they cannot stock everything, but surely they could keep a stock of certain medications especially if there is a risk of sepsis. Even if they could not give him a full course of antibiotics, a couple of tablets until he could get to the chemist this morning would have been useful. Just hoping that the antibiotics kick in overnight as his hand is looking pretty bad.

Our nearest 24 hour pharmacy is a 90 mile drive from our house. Going by public transport would take approx 5 hours each way.All 4 pharmacies in out town shut between 5 and 5.30pm. One doesn't open until 10am. One shuts for 1.5 hours at lunchtime and none of them open on a Sunday.

I thought mine was bad being 63 miles away

In our HB area there are pharmacies with robot dispensers that hold stock of most commonly prescribed medications eg antibiotics for out of hours - they give you a code and pick it up from the dispenser machine. If you can’t get to it they will grudgingly give you an overnight supply to tide
you over till chemist reopens and you can fill the script.

I agree with you.

However, if his whole hand is swollen and the redness is tracking up his arm, I'd get medical review tonight. Risk of sepsis.

There simply wouldn’t be enough room to ‘stock’ all the medications that are prescribed at urgent care, just like a GPs surgery couldn’t carry stock. Pharmacists in the hospital generally finish at 5.

That's the problem. They shouldn't. It should be like the hospital where people work shifts. It's really shameful that this isn't happening in this day and age.

Imagine waiting to get possible sepsis or worse before you take something as simple as antibiotics just because shops that are saving lives have a start and finish time.

Too damned right. I was sent home with a broken shoulder and told to talk paracetamol. It’s unacceptable.

I went to A and E in MH crisis one bank holiday. Was prescribed some medication but the pharmacy at the hospital was shut as it was night time. Prescription could only be used in a hospital pharmacy so had to go back the following day.

Same here. I am at home. There was a “day and night” pharmacy closer, but it shuts at 9!

It is 'the hospital'... Hospital pharmacies have an on call service overnight for emergencies, but there isn't the funding to pay for a 24/7 service. Oral antibiotics are not an emergency. If OP's husband was very ill he'd have been referred to the hospital for IV antibiotics anyway. Clearly urgent care assessed that it could wait until the morning, and also gave worsening advice. I'm the first to criticise the NHS when it fails, but this is a non-event.

That's weird our urgent care/MIU and a&e does stock commonly used medications for patients to take away. Several different types of antibiotics, pain relief and emergency medications. It doesn't take up more than one large cupboard. It could be that they ran out of the particular type after multiple patients requiring a specific antibiotic.