Ordering prescriptions !

The scheme we have signed up for is that we request prescription from Doctors and they fax it to our local chemist who dispences it and delivers 3 days later I always make sure I have a weeks worth of tabs when I re-order just in case anything goes wrong seems to be working well at present.

I always order my repeat at least a week before I need it. Then they text me to say the prescription is ready for collection from Boots. Very good service.

I suddenly realised this morning that I had run out of atenolol. I rang Lloyd's pharmacy who are supposed to arrange and deliver it, only to be told, I'd been crossed off their system!
Why?

Don't get me going on this! We get our tablets from our dispensing practice, which, because we live in a rural area, is about 13 miles away.

Both my OH and I are on very regular medication which virtually never changes, but we are only allowed to order a month's worth of supplies; but that month seems to come round so fast! It seems as though we have no sooner ordered and collected one lot than it is time to order again! And we have got wise to the fact that they sometimes get it wrong and we drive over and drive home, only to find that we have got some vital item missing and we have to go all the way back! And sometimes we get there and they tell us they have not been able to get hold of something so we have to wait while they find a doc to sign a prescription and drive the 16 miles to the nearest pharmacy.

If only we could have 3 months supply - how much easier our lives would be! I do understand that it is an attempt not to waste drugs, but it would make sense to have some concessions for people who live in rural areas.

Mishap you are right, it is so annoying only getting a month in advance. Where we used to live it was 2 months because we were rural, and it's just as rural here but only 1 month.We can hand in our prescriptions in a letter at the local PO and they are supposed to come back 3 days later, but often it takes longer [or they don't arrive at all!]Yes, that month seems to whizz round doesn't it?

Ditto rosesarered. We order over the phone and within two working days the prescription is waiting to be collected at the village shop.

My pharmacist orders mine for me every four weeks. I just go and collect, though they would deliver if I asked.

If the GP surgery messes things up (they do occasionally), the pharmacist dispenses half my usual ration without a prescription and the rest when prescrip arrvies from GP.

We can order two months at a time but I still use the system of taking the prescription in myself about 2 weeks before we need things. While I am still able ot go and do it myself I will continue to do so so I have control.

Recently, I collected my prescription and, rather than take it to the chemist next door to the surgery, I brought it to the local Boots in the village. Stupid idea! They rarely have everything but that doesn't matter because I allow lots of time. After I had been back for the third time, I looked up the item on the internet to discover that it had been discontinued. I went back to the GP and was prescribed a replacement but I expect Boots are still trying to track the original item down.

Ours won't do that. They have to get permission from the doctor! Last time, after I'd waited for an hour,for the doctor to phone back, I wrote myself a private prescription.

Our local Boots is in the same building as the GP surgery - hurrah!
Our local Boots rarely has DH's multifarious medications - or at least never enough - boo! (So order in, come back in 2 days go through the whole procedure again!)
The prescriptions frequently seem to get lost between the GP and the shop (OK it is round the corner) so you have to trail back to the desk, then back to the shop where they deny all knowledge, then back to the desk if they haven't shut by then....
Queues in Boots are regularly 6+ deep at the prescription counter (and waiting time to pick up never less than 10 minutes) so do you wait? Or do you risk popping out for ssome other shopping knowing that you will then rejoin the back of the queue?
It's a 5 mile round trip and if I didn't need blood pressure meds before, I probably do by the time I have navigated the system.

That's cheating, Galen!

My daughter3 was with me when I collected prescriptions for myself, hubby and daughter1 the other day, and she talked me into joining the collection and delivery service at Lloyds Pharmacy, which is next door to our doctor`s. I didn`t understand all of it, but she filled in the forms for me and sent them off, so I hope it doesn`t backfire on me.

We order repeat prescriptions online, and they are ready, usually, within two days at the LLoyds pharmacy attached to our medical centre, to which even I could walk. Maybe not today, though..

They've just arrived. Only 11 hours late taking my tablet

I order ours by email to the surgery (they need 48 hours notice) and the chemist next door collects and dispenses and I pick everything up from there. It works fine - so far! Late last year we had to order double lots to cover a period when the surgery was changing systems and since then I've requested the same double quantity because it works out cheaper...so far it's worked but I'm half expecting someone to question the quantity some time soon.

Once the available dosage of Vagifem was reduced from 25mg to 10 mg. The prescription still specified 25mg so Boots gave me the same number of applications but told me to 'double up!' Slightly worrying that they didn't dispense what was on the prescription and also thought that 2 lots of 10mg was the same as 25mg.

I send my request on line. When it's approved by the doctor, the prescription is sent on line to the pharmacy from which I collect it, about three days after the request. So far, this system is working smoothly.

We have a dispensing surgery as it is a rural practice. Fortunately it is in our usual shopping town so we time prescriptions to collect them when we are in town to shop anyway.

Recently a new pharmacy opened up on a big new industrial estate about a mile and a half, by road from the village. BUT if you live within one mile AS THE CROW FLIES from a pharmacy you cannot use the dispensary at the surgery, so our village is now in the ridiculous situation where half the village is not allowed to use the in-surgery dispensary but the other half can because the crow has to make some extra wing flaps to reach the houses.

Nobody stopped from using the in-surgery dispensary uses the new pharmacy. It is in the middle of this huge estate that nobody ever has any reason to visit and is not on the way to anywhere useful. The deprived just use another pharmacy in the town where the surgery is.