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.

My surgery has a dispensing pharmacy as we are rural. I volunteer to deliver prescriptions around the village to reduce the number of people having to go in. It's amazing how many there are.

hellsbells are more people ill than normal with illnesses that can be treated by pharmacy medicine?

Pharmacy worker here.

We have quite a few more prescriptions than usual. People who don't normally take their medication every day or regularly are now doing so. Particularly asthmatics. Doctors are doing telephone appointments and prescribing where they may not normally, one so they dont need to examine a paitent and two to prevent hospital admissions/A&E visits. I know that would probably be done on a normal basis but we have definitely seen a surge in prescriptions for antibiotics and rescue packs for patients. Surgeries are also in our case in wales and also England where prescriptions are electronic sending prescriptions direct to the pharmacy not allowing the patients to collect from the surgery, which while helpful they are often saying 'local pharmacy' we are having countless patients coming for their prescription to find it's at the pharmacy down the road and vice-versa. Also patients turning up 20 minutes after a phone consultation expecting their prescription so be here as the doctors said they have sent it. We have to send a driver to collect prescriptions so it's not always the same day. A lot of people also not used to the timescales when ordering prescriptions often because they dont usually order prescriptions, people looking after relatives etc meaning someone will come in expecting a prescription they've only ordered the day before, when in reality some surgeries are taking a week.

There are also currently several shortages of extremely common medication so we have lots of work going on in the background asking for alternatives from the prescribed.

We would also be able to serve multiple customers at once, now there are limits on how many people are in the shop/pharmacy this is slowing down the whole process and how fast we can get people in and out of the shop.

We haven't changed our hours but many others in our area have done so. We have increased hugely the amount of deliveries we do. I know a lot of pharmacies especially Boots and Rowland's stopped their in house delivery service last year some time, so may be relying on volunteers or staff that would normally work in the pharmacy itself.

The pharmacy I popped into yesterday (looking for hand sanitiser, actually) was empty.

Boots 8 days ago was also empty (looking for a specific toothpaste DS prefers).

People still have regular prescriptions to collect.

I collected my repeat prescription last week. MIL collected hers yesterday. Dd will have one to collect next month if in lockdown still.

I even had to go and get a blood test at the GP surgery today linked to them. Was a bit of a strange experience compared to normal.

Ours is quiet but it's in a small centre with only a library and docs surgeries so no passing trade. Docs aren't letting many in either generally. I went to get MIL prescription at hers in a town centre and waited a long time but wasn't many people in. Not her usual pharmacy either but their other small branch in the small town is closed so may have something to do with yours being busier

I called the GP for something (paediatric) which a doctor or nurse practitioner would normally see and treat but was told they weren't seeing any patients face to face at the moment and go see pharmacist for advice.

That's why.

Thanks all! That all makes sense. Just in case anyone thought I was having a moan, I wasn’t. I was just mulling it over while stood in the queue. I hope everyone who works in pharmacies isn’t getting too much grief off people - the chap in front of me this morning was having a right old strop about how long he had to queue.

After a very stressful 1 1/2 hour queue to get inside to pick up a prescription the other week (bloke kept inching up behind me and others kept waltzing straight in without queuing) I cracked and signed up to a digital pharmacist. I’ll try & go back to supporting my local after all this, but bloody hell, it’s so much more efficient..

deathmetalmum thank you for your explanation, and thanks OP for asking the question! It’s something I’d been wondering after reading about huge increases in prescriptions.