Why are the pharmacies still so busy?

[PoppliosBubble]

This is probably a stupid question with a very simple answer that I haven’t picked up on yet. But anyway, just wondering why the pharmacies are still so busy?

There are 3 pharmacies in my town. They’re all open additional hours at the moment and appear to have the same amount of staff in as usual (I’m picking up prescriptions for various family members atm so going to the different ones). I know that they’re only letting 1 or 2 people inside at a time but every time I’ve gone there’s been a queue of about 10 people and it’s been about a 30 minute wait. I could understand for the first couple of weeks of lockdown that people would be worrying about their prescriptions and maybe picking them up early or sooner than they usually would. But why is there still so many people wanting pharmacies? Normally when I go in (pre corona) there’s hardly ever anyone else in there.

For the same reasons that you’ve already stated...People are picking up prescriptions for others, going to different pharmacies due to helping various family members, and taking longer because they have to queue, so more people present at once. Seems straightforward to me.

With surgeries being closed, people often go to a pharmacy as a second option for advice/support if they become ill.

The pharmacy that I use was busy before so I imagine it's still busy now.

Ive just requested my repeat prescription that i will pick up in a few days

I am also going today to pick up the strongest painkillers i can get for dds backache

Ah yes the surgeries being closed is a good shout. Pharmacists are generally the best quick resource for general queries around OTC as well as prescribed medication.

ninkanink but in normal circumstances these people would be going to the pharmacies themselves to get the same medication, so no increase in the amount of people actually turning up at the pharmacy.

Hadn’t thought about people asking for pharmacist advice. That makes sense.

Our local pharmacies seem to be operating on reduced opening hours, which is frankly a bit of a nightmare.

Even if the opening hours have been extended, people are set in their routines. They probably wouldn't think to go at 6pm, or something like that.

Also it can take longer if you're collecting medication for a friend/relative rather than yourself. In the past month I've had lots of people coming in to collect who don't know the full name of the person they're collecting for/know them by a different name, don't know the address, don't know whether the person pays for their prescription/which exemption they should tick or have come to the wrong pharmacy. All of these can take a little while to sort out and potentially require a phone call to clarify. If you are collecting for someone else, please know this information before you come to the pharmacy!

Yes but they would be more spread out too, and might not be there at the same time as you. Also likely you wouldn’t notice as many people because some would go elsewhere whilst waiting for a prescription to be filled, instead of queuing outside. People might also ordinarily pick up their prescriptions from their surgery, but now be going to the pharmacy. Plus we all also notice things more when we’re looking for them, so there’s likely a positive bias towards noticing more people waiting now rather than several people in the shop during ‘normal’ life.

There are four pharmacies in our town and there are always queued at all of them. The only difference now is that people are queuing outside.

if people are going to pharmacies ask for advice why can't they do that outside covid lockdown rather than clogging up appointments ? if required a pharmachist will advise them to make gp appointment anyway. it can take up to 3 weeks / month to get appointment here. pita.

I need to get a prescription each month. Also, there are shortages of some of my regular medications, so I can see a situation where my poor partner will need to go to more than one pharmacy to get what I need

Whenever I go normally, they're always busy with queuing people anyway.

Ours won't give advice at this time anyway, it's prescriptions or purchases only. They allow 2 people in the shop at a time and the queue is usually over an hour long throughout the day.
I can't understand how the queue is so consistently long when they have double the staff they would usually have. They've reduced their opening hours by an hour, but surely that shouldn't be causing such large queues.

My pharmacy is always busy

People still get ill
People still need advice
People still need to pick up prescriptions

Although my and partners dr (different surgery)
Have given us 3 months worth of pills we need....
We are both on 6 different meds each, so glad we don't have to go to the pharmacy for awhile

Some of them are closing to clean.

Twice now my DS/DD have had to go back a couple of days later to collect items that were unavailable from my usual prescriptions. That kind of thing will add to the amount of people needing to go each day too.

Ah, yes. Hadn’t considered people going lots of times or to lots of different ones to find out of stock medicine.

Ridiculously busy at my local one too, one of the reasons I can think is that the surgery is sending the prescriptions straight to the chemist next door so everyone has to go there, rather than in the past where some pay have had it dispensed elsewhere.

I do feel there is an element of really bad organisation though.

But no surgeries are closed ( I work in one). They are all working as normal except not seeing as many face to face appointments. Doctors are doing phone snd video consultations. Admin are working harder than usual sorting out all the new guidelines.

People are ordering their scripts earlier and more often (panic buying) so therefore pharmacies are busier.

People still need prescriptions, healthcare and items to keep clean. As you can only have 1/2 in store, then you can't have a few generally browing at the same time. Also, even though staff have gloves, they'll probably be washing their hands and arms more, using santitizer and where I work we've got disinfectant wipes for use between customers. It all takes time.

Because people are ill

I am volunteering to collect prescriptions for the shielded etc. Not that I have had to do it very often, but I have just walked into 3 pharmacies round here (including one of those in-supermarket ones). DH had to wait a while at the surgery pharmacy (but that was because they were behind on making up prescriptions).

I noticed several have varied their hours (not sure whether that is staff shortages or because they are deep cleaning), so maybe that is what is causing the queues.

I am glad where I live managed to keep their small shops and nobody managed to build those big "out of town" superstores. It certainly seems to be making "lockdown" more straightforward.

We moved our prescriptions from the big Sainsbury's because we don't want to go in there. One place didn't have DH's drugs and another didn't have mine, so we registered at different pharmacies and DH had to go to both. So that's two extra visits. One had a big sign up apparently that they don't have paracetamol, hand gel nor masks. The other one didn't have hand gel (we don't need the others) but no sign, so people might be queueing for stuff they can't get.

My DP get their prescriptions delivered now as they're over 70, but the pharmacy can't make up my dad's whole prescription at once apparently so he got 3 different deliveries (each one being chased up by DM). So for those not entitled to deliveries, shortage might also be leading to extra visits.