Is your pharmacy open over the Christmas period?

cepheus

I was hoping to collect some prescription medication ordered through my local chemist in conjunction with the local practice last Monday. However, with having to travel over Christmas followed by the long weekend it seems the earliest they will open to dispense them is Tuesday next week (assuming they will treat Monday as a bank holiday). Bad planning on my part, but easy to overlook with new medication, the Dr prescribing a small tube of lotion over a large area, and with Christmas creeping up. Not critical but inconvenient for a relatively safe medication.

On a vaguely related issue, I note the advice from the NHS is to use Pharmacies for more basic ailments to ease pressure on A&E. However if most aren't open I doubt if this is much good. If the local pharmacies could be convinced to be open for a day over the long weekend and take the bank holiday later in the week that might be more helpful? An alternative solution might be to have the equivalent of a pharmacy attached to A & E which could deal with the simple stuff. Or perhaps they do that already.

torbrex

Was open today as normal but now closed until Tuesday due to bank holiday Monday

Hermia

My local pharmacy was only closed yesterday. I have never lived anywhere where there wasn't one pharmacy that had long hours, but I have always lived in urban areas so that probably makes a difference.

heuchera

Today (Boxing Day) is a normal working day, so the chemists should be open.

Tigsteroonie

Asda in-store pharmacy was open here.

My understanding is that there are pharmacies open on Sundays and bank holidays, just that you may need to travel further. There's normally a rota that covers evenings/sundays/holidays. So there is probably no need for your own local pharmacy to consider shifting its closing day, as customers can be served elsewhere.

Owain_Moneysaver

Every area will have a pharmacy open on a rota, maybe only for a couple of hours in the morning. The rota should be displayed in the pharmacy window and is usually in the local paper.

The local police should also have a copy, or try NHS 101. In an emergency the police can get a pharmacist out of bed to open up.

peachyprice

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

Every area will have a pharmacy open on a rota, maybe only for a couple of hours in the morning. The rota should be displayed in the pharmacy window and is usually in the local paper.

The local police should also have a copy, or try NHS 101. In an emergency the police can get a pharmacist out of bed to open up.

This ^^^^^

DigForVictory

The supermarket pharmacies are great - even when the pharmacist has closed, the staff can route you to the next pharmacy.

As for prescription medication, most pharmacies will help you arrange a prescription in advance. It's all possible with courtesy & planning.

cepheus

Although prescriptions can be used in most pharmacies, in practice many seem to work in conjunction with the local practice. In less populated areas they effectively operate a captured market especially for those with little transport.

Whilst keeping repeats with the local pharmacy is more convenient to many, it takes a long time for a small outfit. They keep the repeat prescription, send it to the practice to be signed off, it gets sent back, then many medicines are usually ordered as required which takes another couple of days. Even more annoyingly the private pharmacy allows the NHS logo to be used whilst I think it means they simply dispense NHS prescriptions. It just seems very archaic.

Perhaps if you have a repeat prescription its no big deal for them to pre-order in advance. Also perhaps there should be no need for GPs to keep signing off repeat prescriptions (which they will do routinely anyway) but they should be given the power to block it (electronically) if a situation arose. This would speed up the process and allow competition with larger pharmacies which are open more often. This way you could keep your own repeat prescription on record with a card and shop anywhere, even on line. It's just a thought although I'm sure there would be opposition.

pmduk

Your local CCG website (in england) will probably list pharmacy arrangements over holidays, my local pharmacy is only closing 25, 26 Dec and 1 Jan