Prescription refund on unused medication

Appzy

pmduk said:

stargirl90 wrote: »

In most cases it actually also benefits the pharmacy to point this out to customers, as they only receive a flat fee for dispensing an NHS prescription (I think it's around 50p per item? Correct me if I'm wrong) compared to a 40-50% profit margin (or more) when they sell the product OTC. So e.g. in the case of the eye drops they lost a potential £1+ sales profit for the sake of a 50p(?) flat fee.

IIRC the last time the fee was discussed on here the pharmacist receives a £90 fee for handling the prescription before the per item fee. It may explain their desperation for patients with repeat items. This was 2-3 years back.

Hah! £90! I wish! There's no longer a handling fee per se. It unfortunately is more in the £1.20 dispensing fee per item category. And some small extra payments for sourcing unlicensed medications etc. Pharmacy funding has been squeezed for years!

Floss

And DON'T  put medication in the bin - return it to any pharmacy for safe disposal

MalMonroe

Floss said:

And DON'T  put medication in the bin - return it to any pharmacy for safe disposal

Yes, that's what we're all told to do but last time I did that the pharmacist was rudely dismissive and said, "we can't dispose of them any safer than you can. Your bin is about as safe as ours is". Which shocked me, I can tell you. But thank goodness I've never had any other medications to dispose of since. 

Floss

That's not right as they should have specific drugs disposal,  was it a dispenser rather than pharmacist? I would find a different pharmacy - I tend to take to a pharmacy shop wherever I am going, not just my local (which is a Boots attached to my GP) , I've even taken a few ood meds to the pharmacy in my hospital workplace & they just said "thanks, we'll dispose of them". 

warwick2001

Sorry for resurrecting this old thread, but I have an interesting scenario....

Ordered some drugs through ASDA using a private prescription (from IVF clinic). ASDA could only get 3 of the 4 drugs needed, but would continue to check with their supplier to see if they could get the last item. No problem I thought, we had 2 months before the 4th drug was needed. I paid for the full script (£300.... IVF drugs are expensive!!)

So, after 1 1/2 months, ASDA still could not get hold of the 4th drug, so when speaking to the pharmacist I said not to bother trying to get it anymore and I will source it direct from the clinic (at a massively increased price!). ASDA have now just rang me, 1 month later, to say the 4th drug is now sat in their store, and its ready for collection. Errrr......???

Obviously I repeated the conversation I had with them a month previous, telling them to cancel the order. They are insisting this is my fault, and refuse to give a refund (thankfully its not a huge amount). Needless to say I am pretty shocked that they are refusing to give a refund, despite the fact I told them not to order the drug, and that they KNEW (stressed repeatedly to them) it was massively time dependent, and that I just couldn't sit around waiting for them to get hold of it. On a random side note, they are saying that if I hadn't paid for it at the start, they could return the drug to the supplier, but because I have paid, they can't return it. Seems very odd.

Thoughts? Should I bother pursuing it? I have a telephone meeting with the manager tomorrow, so hopefully it'll be resolved. Just wondering what people think of this, refund or not?

sheramber

I expect they remove  it from stock when payment is made.
Once removed from stock they will be unable to return it.

warwick2001

sheramber said:

I expect they remove  it from stock when payment is made.
Once removed from stock they will be unable to return it.

Which is fine if they have the drug in stock. They didn't. And neither did their suppliers. That was the problem, they never had it in stock, nor could they get hold of it, to give me. It was only 2 weeks after I told them to cancel the order that it actually came back into stock. And its not like a pre-order where I 'reserve' a supply of said drug. ASDA have to order the drugs as and when they become available, as they do not want to hold a supply of anything that isn't a 'routine' drug. And obviously IVF drugs are not routine. 

That's the issue here. I told them to cancel the order. They didn't. And now they are refusing a refund, even though I told them to cancel the order 2 weeks before the drug became available to them.

Floss

Do you have a copy of the email cancelling the order? Or a record of who you spoke to at what time on what date?

warwick2001

No email, it was a telephone conversation with the pharmacist