Pharmacies: more than medicine

Our findings 

• 15 people said that the opening hours were an issue. These people said that because their pharmacy closed at lunchtime, at weekends, and around 6pm on weekdays, it made access very difficult for working people.
• 20 people made mention of the need for more staff, or more consistent staffing. Having a ‘regular’ pharmacist and pharmacy team was felt to be important by these people. It was also felt that the long queues could be alleviated by either more staff during peak times or perhaps better systems at the counter.
• 6 people would like to see better communication between their GP and their pharmacist. We were told that issues with prescriptions can often take a number of days to resolve.
• 6 people told us that they regularly had to return to the pharmacy to collect ‘IOU’ items because of low stock levels. One person told us it was “easier to get sugar loaded drinks at the pharmacy than it was to get medication’.
• On the whole, people were generally happy with the patient focus of their pharmacy, with even most of those who gave suggestions for improvements made positive comments about the staff attitudes.
• Almost half of the pharmacists we spoke to said they didn’t know what the ICB was.
• Pharmacists would like the NHS contracts to reflect what they actually do. What the NHS pay pharmacies for medications is not aligned with the price the pharmacists buy them at.
• Pharmacists would like their profession to be promoted and to be regarded as the health professionals that they are. They feel that this would also help attract people into pharmacy as a career.
• Pharmacists would also like to have an easier way to contact their patient’s GP practice to discuss prescriptions, drug interactions and to check for correctness when they pick up issues, than they do currently. While a small number of pharmacies have a direct line to their local GP practice, in the main, pharmacists have to wait in the telephone queue along with everyone else.