Thanks for the question 923 - broadly prescriptions are roughly 75% repeatable medicines (usually but not always every 28-days) with the remainder being for short-term treatments to deal with infections or short-term worsening of a long term condition. Patients or in some areas pharmacies order repeats and they are processed at the surgery & sent to a nominated (by the patient) pharmacy.
When the prescription reaches the pharmacy it's checked by a pharmacist to ensure it is clinically appropriate and run through the computer to create a stock order (usually delivered the next day) & the white label with all the instructions. When the stock arrives the labels are stuck on and it goes through a final check process for accuracy.
Unfortunately - doctors surgeries typically tell patients their prescription is at the pharmacy without telling them the next part about when it is likely to be ready for collection which should be about 2 working days after it's been received all being well.
Pharmacies are private businesses largely funded by the NHS for the dispensing services provided - the margins are extremely tight, so much so that the taxpayer gets a cracking deal and in England a 7% funding cut plus the recent addition of a 5-year deal of no new money (so with inflation at 2% it's a cut of 10% over 5 years assuming operating costs go up by that amount). The govt has told companies to automate using central warehousing which is now commonplace but actually adds time to turn a prescription around. There is minimal spare capacity in the system as we would not be a viable business - I work for a larger multiple, each shop averages about £35 profit per day.
Still with me I hope?
Doctors now have more or less shut up shop, cancelling appointments and doing a lot over the phone & that has sped up the prescription creation so they get more done in a day, sent straight to us. That's the first bottleneck, the 2nd bottleneck is many people have ordered their repeats far too early (think panic buying) and there is no easy way to identify the more urgent from the less so.
The asthmatics despite being well controlled and not having ordered medication for some time have also piled in, I don't blame them as people are worried.
We are overwhelmed with work, it has created long queues and lots of queries which take time to deal with, not to mention the cretinous abuse from ignorant selfish me me me types, many of whom have no place else to be anytime soon under the current rules.
Our workforce is also affected by the virus too, I am about 25% under-resourced and the workload is 15 to 20% higher - so most pharmacies are closing their doors in order to catch-up operationally so more is ready to hand out when the doors are open.
Sorry it's a long response but hope it makes sense!
Keep safe and play nice with your pharmacy - it's unbelievably hard for them.
WCV
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Originally Posted by westcountryvillain
