Pharmacists

[puggit]

Hoping someone on PH can answer this age old question...

When you go in to a chemists with a simple prescription, why does it take 20 mins for the pharmacist to find one sheet of pills?

[drogo]

`cause he can`t read the doc`s hand writing?

He`s got lots and lots and lots of pills?

[Trooper2]

......and mistakes can be very costly.

[graham@reading]

No idea, but this thread keeps appearing and disappearing

[RichUK]

graham@reading said:

No idea, but this thread keeps appearing and disappearing

Lots of threads keep doing that at the moment.

[ulakye]

The pharmacist has to find the right pills.

The pharamcist has to find the correct strength (many pills come in multiple strengths / dosages).

The pharmacist has to find the correct pack size (many pills come in multiple pack sizes).

After doing all the above the prescription has to be checked by another member of staff to avoid errors.

If any 'controlled drugs' are prescribed then these need to be logged.

Many pharmacists are now computerised so may check if there was a previous prescription.

Oh and if they suspect the prescription is fraudulent then they will call the police. This might take 20 minutes so they have to keep you waiting until they arrive..............

[Trooper2]

.......and if you have multiple prescriptions they have to check to make sure that the drugs interactions won't make you more sick or kill you.

[r988]

but mostly it's a chance to have a sly cigarette out back

[Lois]

Don't forget there may have been a few scripts to do before yours plus they have all the other work to do.

I work in a pharmacy and a script can take anything from 2 minutes to half an hour to complete.

[nightmare]

usually they need to check through the massive stack of parallel imported medicines they've bought out the back of Burts truck...and then removev the swahili PIL and replace it with one which comes from (hopefully) the UK....before billing the NHS for the full reimbursement price of course.

can be quite time consuming

[HFLagos]

ulakye said:

The pharmacist has to find the right pills.

The pharamcist has to find the correct strength (many pills come in multiple strengths / dosages).

The pharmacist has to find the correct pack size (many pills come in multiple pack sizes).

After doing all the above the prescription has to be checked by another member of staff to avoid errors.

If any 'controlled drugs' are prescribed then these need to be logged.

Many pharmacists are now computerised so may check if there was a previous prescription.

Oh and if they suspect the prescription is fraudulent then they will call the police. This might take 20 minutes so they have to keep you waiting until they arrive..............

Well said,

Pharmacists also tend to take on an extra insurance policy against their employers, because if a mistake is made, their employer may well leave them hung out to dry and deny any liability whatsoever.