The Lemon Fool

Yesterday I went to the pharmacy to collect meds.
I was told I couldn't have them because the pharmacist had been called away.

I went again today and saw a notice on the window saying (in effect) ' precription meds not available as no pharmacist present'.

I could see the pharmacist was there so I queued and went in. I was given my meds.

I asked why the message was still being displayed -- mumbled responses but no one went to take the message off the window...

Not sure why you are complaining as the ‘go away’ sign meant you didn’t have to queue.

Perhaps you should have encouraged them to keep it up so only those in the know knew it was false!

gnawsome wrote:I was told I couldn't have them because the pharmacist had been called away.

I've long struggled to see the purpose of this rule where it's a list of boxes of pills that are on the shelf and the list has been signed off by the local GP practice. Have the pharmacist present perhaps when the pills are put in the bag, but why do they need to be present when the bag is collected?

Dispensing is giving to customer. A pharmacist preparing medicine but not observing it was dispensed allows tampering and abuse

Change pharmacy, obviously.

Mike4 wrote:Change pharmacy, obviously.

It's an encouragement to use chains rather than one person operations. Even the chains will decline to hand over the pre packaged medicines if the nominated pharmacist is absent.

Alaric wrote:

Mike4 wrote:Change pharmacy, obviously.

It's an encouragement to use chains rather than one person operations. Even the chains will decline to hand over the pre packaged medicines if the nominated pharmacist is absent.

I took the OP's root complaint to be the false notice in the window claiming the pharmacist was absent when the pharmacist was, in fact, present in the branch.

With a chain chemist there is probably a method of escalating a complaint about such a sign, should an individual branch display one.

Mst chemists in this area do a delivery service. If yours does the same just ask for the prescribed items to be delivered. We have gone over to this system recently due to long waits in the shop.

Mike4 wrote:
I took the OP's root complaint to be the false notice in the window claiming the pharmacist was absent when the pharmacist was, in fact, present in the branch.

"... the same as that"

Having been already 'warmed up' by the only other person in the queue standing in the middle of a 4m wide footpath

Alaric wrote:

gnawsome wrote:I was told I couldn't have them because the pharmacist had been called away.

I've long struggled to see the purpose of this rule where it's a list of boxes of pills that are on the shelf and the list has been signed off by the local GP practice. Have the pharmacist present perhaps when the pills are put in the bag, but why do they need to be present when the bag is collected?

I think that this may be simply due to the rules not being updated. There was a time when pharmacists used to dispense pills into small bottles for collection by the customer with a simple sticker saying how many to take. Very often it was not at all clear what exactly was in the bottle. These days, they have to be in the original packaging with the official information sheet supplied by the manufacturer.

Steve