A few days ago I had the pleasure of visiting a close relative who is in their mid 80’s and whilst still quite mobile, the person concerned has no transport available apart from a bus pass. They have a number of health conditions which are all supported through medicine that is prescribed by their Doctor and all is going as well as is realistic. However the bureaucratic nature of prescription rules and how they are interpreted along with the commercial nature of pharmacy chains nearly led to a minor crisis for this person.

On Friday they visited Boots the Chemist which is the Pharmacy where they usually get their medicine as they only had a couple of days left of their medicine. The prescription contained two items, one of which was in stock and the other which was not. The Pharmacy Assistant suggested that the patient took the one item away and return the following day when hopefully they would have the second item available. The following day the item had not arrived with the daily delivery and so the Assistant suggested that they would ring round and get in touch with the patient to let them know. On Monday the patient rang to see how things were progressing. An apology was given and a promise that the ringing round would take place. A few minutes later the call back came and the person suggested that they would try to find an alternative product that would be acceptable to the GP. Several hours later I rang another Boots store and asked if they had the missing item in stock. The response was that the item on the prescription was on a list of medicine that was out of stock across the whole of the Boots chain, but a suggestion that other chemists may have stock. One phone call later and it transpired a nearby chemist had the items sitting on their shelf. This then uncovered a further challenge because the prescription was partially exhausted and so Boots could not return it to the patient and because the goods were prescription only the second chemist could not dispense them even though they could see the second part of the prescription which included the list of items. I then asked the chemist if they could contact the GP and they explained how this was not something they were allowed to do. Of course ringing GPs is never easy but I got through and explained the situation and after a discussion suggested they issue a second prescription. Unfortunately the GP was on holiday and the Locum was not allowed to issue a prescription because according to the Surgery records the patient was due for a review. Frustratingly the review had taken place in the Summer although the patient had not chosen to return to get the results. However the medicine concerned is eye drops to prevent the eyes drying up so not something that would be dangerous to continue with under almost any circumstances and equally something that would create problems if not available. After a very direct approach the GP practice, they agreed to take some advice and asked for a call back in half an hour. The second call resolved the matter but had it been the patient travelling from one chemist to another and then back again to the second chemist would have been a real challenge. At one point during the first call the GP practice refused to help because the second Chemist was not the designated Pharmacist for the Patient and of course the Locum was not the designated Doctor for the Patient and they were researching to find an alternative product that Boots did have in stock. As a minor frustration the Boots store appeared to have taken their phone off the hook due to how busy they were when I tried to contact them which added to the amount of travelling needed.

In an ideal world one would be looking for a way to raise these concerns to improve matters, but bearing in mind how poorly resourced the NHS is and clearly how lacking in process Boots is, it seems as though there would be no obvious benefit from doing so.