Lloyds Pharmacy

barbiedoll

I worked in a high street pharmacy (small branch) for 5 years and we never ran out of antibiotics! I know that not everyone takes the standard penicillin-based ones, but even the alternatives which weren't prescribed so often, were always in stock, we used to keep 3-4 days worth at the very least.

As for waiting 2 days for the stock to come in, that is ridiculous. Pharmaceutical distributers do two deliveries daily to most of their pharmacies and one delivery on Saturday. Unless you went in on a Saturday evening, in which case, you would have to wait until Monday morning, there's no reason why you should have to wait two days!

The issue with the fluoxetine is disgraceful. Either the pharmacist has made a grave error, or the prescribing doctor has put the wrong item on the prescription. (Although a 4 x daily dose of fluoxetine is not a normal dose, the pharmacist should have queried this at least.) You should complain in writing and in person and make sure that your complaint is followed up.

esuhl

barbiedoll wrote: »

The issue with the fluoxetine is disgraceful. Either the pharmacist has made a grave error, or the prescribing doctor has put the wrong item on the prescription. (Although a 4 x daily dose of fluoxetine is not a normal dose, the pharmacist should have queried this at least.) You should complain in writing and in person and make sure that your complaint is followed up.

It was the pharmacist that made the error. The prescription was correct and the dispensing labels that were printed showed the correct drug name and the correct dose for that drug (i.e. 4 a day).

Unfortunately the three correct labels were for some inexplicable reason attached to three boxes of fluoxetine which (if it had actually been prescribed) should normally be taken once a day.

I complained in person since I had to get them to swap what I'd been given for the prescribed drugs. I would have (and should have) pushed the matter further but I was just so stressed and exhausted that I just didn't have the energy. Cancer is bad enough without !!!! ups from trusted professionals.

upsadaisy

Considering that the medicines should be checked by another pharmacist, it's disgraceful that mix up happened.

The Boots near me has never once been out of stock of medicines, it's just some problem with Lloyds.

barbiedoll

esuhl wrote: »

It was the pharmacist that made the error. The prescription was correct and the dispensing labels that were printed showed the correct drug name and the correct dose for that drug (i.e. 4 a day).

Unfortunately the three correct labels were for some inexplicable reason attached to three boxes of fluoxetine which (if it had actually been prescribed) should normally be taken once a day.

I complained in person since I had to get them to swap what I'd been given for the prescribed drugs. I would have (and should have) pushed the matter further but I was just so stressed and exhausted that I just didn't have the energy. Cancer is bad enough without !!!! ups from trusted professionals.

To be honest, there are hundreds of prescribing/dispensing errors every day in hospital pharmacies, I've worked in one of those too. But hospital pharmacies are working at breakneck speed, dispensing hundreds of complicated, hand-written prescriptions each day, often with fiddly dosage instructions which have to be typed onto each individual label.

Anyone who has waited in a high street pharmacy knows that they hardly appear to hurry themselves, you seem to wait ages for one simple item, let alone a script with 4 items on it. They are usually picked by a dispenser (normally just a sales assistant with an NVQ) and often labelled by them too, the drugs are then checked against the prescription by the qualified pharmacist and given out to whoever is collecting them. The scripts are almost always printed out from a computer so there are hardly ever any deciphering errors, there is no excuse for what happened in this case.

You don't say what drug was originally prescribed but I cannot think of anything that would be prescribed to a cancer patient with a name that even resembles fluoxetine, unless it was the antibiotic flucloxacillin (usually taken 4 x daily)? Still no excuses though, it's one of the first things that pharmacist and technicians are taught, check, check and check again the name of the drug, as so many of them are similar-looking.

I worked with a locum pharmacist once who was running her own business from our shop. She used to hold clothes parties and spent the entire day calling her clients and updating her records on her laptop. She didn't want to check any of our dispensing and we only got rid of her because we complained and we got our customers to complain too.

esuhl

I know that mistakes happen, but these kind of mistakes are so risky that there should be steps in place to prevent them from happening.

I'm cross with myself for not noticing. It was a repeat prescription, otherwise I would have read the drug info leaflet and noticed; I only checked the dispensing label.

barbiedoll wrote: »

You don't say what drug was originally prescribed but I cannot think of anything that would be prescribed to a cancer patient with a name that even resembles fluoxetine, unless it was the antibiotic flucloxacillin (usually taken 4 x daily)? Still no excuses though, it's one of the first things that pharmacist and technicians are taught, check, check and check again the name of the drug, as so many of them are similar-looking.

I can't remember which drug should have been prescribed (mum's had so many), but it was completely different to fluoxetine - not for a similar condition, not with similar generic names or brand names, not of similar strength and not the same dosage... I couldn't think of any reason why they would even be close to each other.

All I can think is that the pharmacist was dispensing prescriptions for two patients at the same time and got the boxes/labels mixed up... which means that someone got mum's drug instead of their fluoxetine. That can't have made them too happy (sorry - bad joke!)

Fortunately we don't think any major harm was caused, but it could have been so different.

missprice

SA_Brained wrote: »

Pharmacies do not hold large stocks of medicines due to space, cost etc. There will be times when items are missing although "basics" are less likely to be short. Also some GPs change their prescribing habits from time to time and this can catch a pharmacy out. They will hold stocks of a particular antibiotic (for example) and then the doctor decides to prescribe a different antibiotic. Lots for antibiotics in stock but not the brand prescribed. I wonder why doctors do that?

.

pretty sure docs change antibiotics sometimes as some people (me included) need them fairly regularly and we are getting to be anti biotic resistant
last time i needed them i took a weeks worth and the awful infection came back, so had to return to docs and get a completely different brand/type, at least i think thats what he said, i was so ill was taking sod all notice at the time:)

pmduk

Often it's the local PCT will ask doctors to change the medications they prescribe, often for either generic alternatives or a cheaper brand, surely we should applaud this on a money-saving site, provding the medication is of the same quality?