Difficulties with on-line prescriptions.

Summary: Difficulties with on-line prescriptions.

I am a full time 24/7 carer who also has chronic health issues. Being able to leave the house to collect my medicine each month or more, from a pharmacy, is a luxury I don’t have.

I previously had my named pharmacy as an online pharmacy that does postal delivery (I’ve used Boots Online Prescription Delivery, and Pharmacy2U). This worked well for normal monthly repeat prescriptions. However, any time I have had a GP appointment (Maghull Practice PC24) and needed a new acute prescription following the appointment, such as for antibiotics or new medications, and have asked for it to be sent to the pharmacy next door (Boots Pharmacy Maghull) so I can collect it while I’m there, by the GP sending it there, it has automatically changed my named pharmacy to that pharmacy, and has disconnected me from the online pharmacy postal delivery services. So when I am next due my repeat prescription, it all goes wrong again. This has happened multiple times.

At one point, my repeat prescription ended up being sent to a Boots pharmacy in Leicestershire (I am in Sefton), because it turns out that is the physical address for the Boots Online Pharmacy service, and because I was unknowingly disconnected from the postal delivery service aspect, it sent the prescription to an actual Leicestershire Boots pharmacy for me to collect! I then had to chase around and get the prescription reissued.

Why there isn’t an ability on the GPs system (EMIS?) to differentiate where to send acute or one off prescriptions vs repeat prescriptions, I will never understand. Every time I get an acute prescription, it removes me from the online pharmacy delivery service for my repeat prescriptions. And then I have to do the admin to set it back up.

This issue came to a head recently when a prescription was sent to the pharmacy next to my GP practice, following a telephone appointment with the GP. I was then unable to collect the medicine from the physical pharmacy for over 2 weeks because of care responsibilities and an inability to leave my parents in order for me to go out to collect from the pharmacy. I have NO help whatsoever, no one who can stay with my parents, and no one who can pick up the medication for me.

Because of these issues, I recently changed my named pharmacy, to Station Pharmacy Maghull, which is the same pharmacy my parents (who I care for full time) use, as this pharmacy has a local delivery service. My parents’ medications are delivered to our home monthly, and this has been the case for years. I thought this would be a good solution to the ongoing problems I am having with my own medicine, as I could register for their delivery service and my prescription could be delivered alongside my parents.

So I phoned up today to ask how to sign up for their (Station Pharmacy) delivery service. And this was then quickly refused by the person I spoke to. I explained I am a full time carer and I am struggling to collect my medications because I am so limited on being able to leave the house due to caring responsibilities, and I also explained that they already deliver by parents’ medicines to the same address. The person I spoke to asked for my name and address, and then said I’m not on their records - I explained I had just recently changed them to be my named pharmacy, which was why I was now calling to join their delivery service. The person I spoke to then said “well you’d have to make sure you keep up with your prepayments” (for prepayment certificate) which I do keep up with and have never missed one in 6+ years, so this comment felt quite odd and accusatory. It felt like this was being quickly used as a reason why I was being refused this sevice. The person then asked if I’m sure I can’t just TRY to pick my own medicines up from a pharmacy, and proceeded to tell me that their delivery service (which they advertise on their website) is too busy, and then AGAIN said I should just try to pick them up myself. She then said I should try to pick them up and if there’s an occasional issue, maybe they could help deliver as a one off. I explained that the point is that i cannot just pop in and collect my medicines, as a 24/7 carer, and that isn’t an option. She then said “well sorry” and told me to try again later when it’s less busy, “maybe in a week” - which felt pretty odd, I’m not sure what difference one week would make.

I very much felt like she didn’t care at all, and I felt like there was zero understanding for the difficulties carers can face.

I’m at the point where I feel like I’m hitting brick wall after brick wall, with services and also with the stupid system around named pharmacy/EMIS, and quite honestly I feel like no one cares about my health as a carer. I can’t even leave to go and buy milk most of the time, yet there’s no support for me getting my own prescriptions.