Just back from another exasperating trip to Lloyds where yet again, they have cocked up my repeat prescription, ordering a drug I don’t need and not ordering one I do. Ordering the medication when I’ve not asked for it to be ordered has happened about 20 times now- the first few times I didn’t realise until I got home and couldn’t return the medication, which has now started piling up in my medicine cabinet. Latterly I have checked my order in store and passed the medications I don’t need back to them. Every time I request a repeat prescription I specify what I do and don’t need… and every single time they cock it up to such an extent that I’m starting to think it’s a deliberate, corporate sanctioned way to defraud the NHS. I even went so far as to request my surgery to delete all trace of that medication from my prescription history so the pharmacy couldn’t order it, but it still managed. I am so fed up with having the same argument with the pharmacist every week, but the only other pharmacy in the area has restricted hours and is manned by a woman with the general demeanour of a bulldog chewing wasps. So please, does anyone have a suggestion as to where/how I can get my repeat prescriptions filled that just … happens , smoothly, correctly and without drama?
11 comments
sounds like your broader problem is your prescription is wrong?
Your can return unused medicines to any pharmacy
Just use whatever NHS-linked app you like, you’ll get reminders to reorder and can choose which meds to reorder.
I use Patient Access – you need a code from your GP to register/sign up.
Get the NHS app and do it through there. You’ll need to ask your Dr for your NHS number and go from there.
https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-app/nhs-app-help-and-support/prescriptions-in-the-nhs-app/ordering-a-prescription/
I worked in a patient-facing role at a highly rated GP for a couple of years. How are you ordering your meds? If it’s directly through that pharmacy, it may be time to try something else (I know you shouldn’t have to, but having spent more hours on the phone to pharmacies than I care to admit, some of them are wildly clueless/incompetent).
Either: try ordering directly through a different pharmacy (and ensure that your default pharmacy preference is changed on your GP patient record so that any new meds don’t get sent there in future).
Or: Most (all?) GPs should have an online account option, through which you can book appointments, submit prescription requests etc. Your GP prescription clerk would then process it through a pharmacy of your choice.
By the time I quit, our most dependent and regular patients were using our online system so that they didn’t have to deal with the pharmacy except when collecting.
As others have said, just order your medication yourself either through the NHS app or you practice’s online portal.
Most pharmacies around me have abandoned the automatic ordering system you describe, largely because of the same issues you’re facing.
Pharmacy2u is a great service
Down load nhs app brilliant
I do mine myself, my GP uses Patient Access but it can also be done on the NHS app. Ask your GP reception if they’re set up for online repeat ordering.
I tick a box in the app and about 4 or 5 days later get a text from Boots to say it’s ready.
The local Day Lewis have lockers by their door so if I had them sent there I could just go anytime, enter a PIN and confirm my date of birth, and get my medication dropped out like a vending machine.
Does anyone have any experience with +well pharmacy service?
Whatever you do, don’t use PillTime. Just went without my antidepressants for six days thanks to their incompetence.