Prescriptions: series of mistakes: is this usual?

[Rubydoobydoobydoo]

Currently looking after an elderly relative while his usual carer has a well-earned break. He's on a number of medications and each time I've gone to pick them up from the pharmacy there have been mistakes. Today he was supposed to receive 56 Rampiril, 56 Indapimide, 56 statins and 112 Metformin tablets to cover two months on a repeat prescription. Instead he received 112 Ramipril, 112 Indapimide, 112 statins and 42 Metformin in a box that had been opened, had one of the four slides of tablets removed and was marked with biro on the box. The pharmacist says my elderly relative must have mislaid the rest of the Metformin. I said I was the one who collected everything and sat with him while he opened the bags and we put everything into his daily and weekly pill boxes. Apparently we need to go back to the GP to ask for another prescription, which seems like a terrible waste of everyone's time. Is Metformin very expensive?

He has another condition that requires other medication that was due to be received before Christmas. One of the three drugs on that prescription was missing and there were extra doses of one of the others.

I've never known the pharmacy I use at home make a mistake. Is this just a slipshod set-up? My relative is in his 90s and gets bothered when things don't add up.

I'm on some repeat prescriptions and it never goes smoothly and usually results in me having to phone the surgery 3 times after popping into the pharmacy a few times to see if they are they. I've only once had an incorrect dose given to me and I stopped going to that pharmacy - it was only HRT but the rude pharmacist didn't apologise and shouted out to a full shop what it was. I expect a bit more discretion than that. Basically every month I'm wondering if there is going to be a few days of gap of me not having my prescriptions - thyroid mainly.

My DF was sent the wrong medication by the chemist. Luckily he didn’t think it looked right so rang them, but it could have been a whole lot different if he’d just taken them. Someone else he knows of had a similar problem from the same place.

While mine was only HRT it was a higher dose he got wrong. He said something along the lines you had a smaller dose last time. I told him he should be checking prescriptions carefully each time; HRT won't kill you but something else could. He was miffed so chose to embarrass me by shouting out my prescription to the whole shop when it was ready. Knobhead.

Looking back that wasn't the only reason I didn't go there again. I was due my levothyroxine the day after we went into lockdown so asked for it a day early. They wouldn't do it even though they'd done it before. I ended up saying there's no common sense here at all and got the surgery to send my prescriptions to another pharmacy after that. I always check my prescription now before leaving a pharmacy.

The pharmacy I use has become really bad. They tried to convince me I'd already collected my prescription when I hadn't, they'd put it in the wrong place. Several times they have given people someone else's prescription- put the wrong name and address label on the bag- presumably this has been checked by the pharmacist. They have been reported but nothing has been done.
I stay with them because it's so handy and because I am able to check that I'm given the right thing, but some people could be put in danger by not realising they have been given the wrong tablet.
I know some pharmacies are under pressure due to others closing down but I can't think of any round this area that have closed.

Could you be blaming the wrong people? Pharmacists dispense what prescriptions they receive, so if the prescription said 112 of xyz, that’s what they’ll dispense. It sounds v like the gp were doubling quantities (to cover for Christmas?) and gave you four months supply instead of two.

Not sure about the metformin though. Either someone at surgery typed in wrong quantity, or pharmacy short changed you.

It's a long-term repeat prescription that has been running for several years now: the GP okays it every year. So I do think it has to be going wrong at the pharmacy.

Thanks for those who've confirmed that this kind of thing isn't that unusual. I've never known it happen before and it seems like a terrible waste of a GP's time to have to issue another prescription.

I had an incorrect prescription and reported the pharmacy. There was an investigation and I received a thorough update on proposed mitigations. It’s not ok or something that should be brushed aside.

Maybe he'd be better on a blister pack prescription from somewhere like this if he's taking four drugs each day

www.simpleonlinepharmacy.co.uk/medications/blister-pack/

He finds the blister packs more difficult than reusable pill containers. Very easy to knock the pack over and lose a pill when trying to open a blister pack.