General Chat

I went on a course for a week and some how managed to lose track of the box of meds I had taken with me.

I made a trip to a nearby walkin centre, explained the situation and had a short wait to see a doctor . necessary meds prescribed on a urgent basis and filled at a nearby sainsbury's pharmacy...

about an hour and a half..

Bob.

AnnMarie G.

So glad you got the script sorted and yes some of the chemists are brilliant,I know mine is and they deliver the medication to my door.

Glad that the script was faxed through and hoefully they will deliver it for you.

Sue

Rung the chemist earlier to ask if said prescpt was back (as it is delivered to them) and they said no but asked why and told them about it and they said they would ring the docs and ask then to fax it through. They have just rung to say it is there. all in a matter of 10 mins. They are real sweeties at my chemist so should of thought to ask their advice fisrt.
Big thank you to all who commented on my thread and for all the good advice.
You really are a great lot. :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

AnnMarieG

I too have run out of tablets in the past. and Fortunately for me would be able to get a prescription at short notice from my GP. There are what appears to be good and bad receptionists but I expect the 'bad' ones are only doing what they have been told to do.

On the one occasion I ran out of a part of my prescription at a Bank Holiday. I managed to get a supply to cover me from the local chemist but I did have to pay for them.

Hope you managed to get sorted today. Not good to be worrying about not taking tablets. Bad enough having to take them in the first place.

Vera

Vera

AnnMarieG.

Ring the Dr's again and ask them to Fax the prescription through to the Chemists.
The receptionist that is nice that willl do it.the one that is awful won't unless like I did one month put the script in on the Monday morning and expected it to be ready Wednesday afternoon well it wasn't and I was going away the next day so couldn't pick it up on the Thursday.

I asked her to fax it througfh to the chemist and she said oh that will take at least a couple of hours to do..I told her it would take 10 minutes of her valuable time and would be quicker for her to do and as I am disabled it would save me walking up to the surgery again.(surgery is about 20 minutes walk from my place and it's all up hill.)

When I got home I rang the chemist to expect the script through by fax and he waited for over 4 hours and rangg the surgery himself to ask where the script was.
She got another colleague to fax it through that minute.
She is just a cevil with horns.

Good luck hope you get your hubby's script .

Sue
We have one nice receptioinist and 3 awful ones.

One of them thinks she is the gaoler of the doctors asnd nurse.she she has to know WHY I need the doctor and as Porkie Pie said,,it's nothing to do with her.and I tell her so.

Thanks Barbra,if i dont get them today I will try that. :-)

Just a thought could the chemist not give you a dosage of medication .untill you get your perscription sorted .they will then just knock of the ones you have already had.if its an ongoing repeat perscription worth a try Barbra

KenSE, I wish we could bypass our receptionist. Sounds like a brilliant idea.
+++DetEcTive+++ I must be really thick.doh. I have had a problem with tablets running out before repeat was due but it just didnt 'click' that packs were 28 and months were 30 or 31 days.must be my age or I'm just daft.lol.I did have a problem once when the doc prescribed 2 tabs a day but only gave me 28 for the month.It took quite a while for the receptionist to realise what I was saying about not having enough.Thanks for pointing this out.
Sharron, Hope you got things sorted out for your Dad. All we need sometimes is a bit of caring support, which is not a lot to ask for, is it?
Thank you all. :-) :-)

I have never really had to deal with anything medical before. Dad was discharged from hospital on a Tuesday with a bag of pills, no thickener for his drinks and no night bags for his catheter.

In this very strange situation, I was left completely alone apart from the wonderful carers with three strengths of warfarin. He had no medication for two days as the practice was told he was being discharged on the Friday.

By late on Thursday afternoon I was desperate for some support so I telephoned the surgery and explained the situation. All I wanted was ten minutes of somebody's time to talk me through it.

Have you seen the district nurse? Do yu have an appointment with the doctor?I could fit you in sometime in the future.

She had me in tears so I wonder how some other people must be dealt with in times of great stress like that.

The only time when I’ve had a problem with a Receptionist is when the script wasn’t ready despite it having been handed in on time. We had a ‘disagreement’ as OH needed it that day. She insisted that he should have at least one tablet left. No – a blister pack is 28 days, which unless it is February is less than a month!

To her credit, she did go and lie in wait for a GP to be free.

Thank you for all your comments.I do appreciate the 48hr rule but I have never done this before and I always think exceptions can be made.
Thank you Wend for you kind words. :-)

I think I'm very lucky in having a fantastic GP and the rest of the staff, including receptionists, are never anything but pleasant, helpful and friendly. I was in the waiting room one morning recently, when a young man burst in and demanded, rather abruptly with no please or thankyou, to see a doctor immediately. He was not registered and the receptionist calmly replied that the doctors were very busy with appointed patients at the moment, but if he would like to take a seat, she would speak to one of them between patients to see if he could be seen at the end of the morning. I presume that is what happened, as he was still there when I left later.

There is only one nurse, but the receptionists always ask me why I wish to see her when I make an appointment because it affects the length of appointment. For example, testing BP is quicker than taking out stitches. I can always speak to them in private if I wish.

Edit to add - although there is a 3-days in advance requirement for prescriptions at my surgery, on the 2 occasions I have forgotten, they were very obliging and I was able to collect them at the end of the day. Sorry to hear of your unfortunate experience AnnMarieG and I hope your husband is able to get his medication soon.

Jane, I think the receptionist you spoke to vastly overstated her work load? they may well cover those areas you list but that doesn't mean they are running around like head less chickens and as for standing around outside the doctors room for a gap in his appointments in order to get a signature no one is suggesting such a thing, The receptionist knows when their is a gap in the flow of patients (She made the appointments) and she can see when the last patient exited the room and then theirs them new fangled thing such as computers and printers the surgery's also have things called telephones and intercoms systems

I'm Glad to say that their are some very good receptionist

But theirs also nothing quite like blowing your own trumpet


Roy

Our surgery is very good.

They do ask for 48 hrs notice to turn around prescriptions but this is because:

They can have over 100 perscriptions to turn out in a morning. The receptionist told me that Issuing perscriptions is not always straight forward. They have to prepare the scripts for signing, put the ones they cant do through to the DR, Phone patients if for any reason they cant issue the medication. Look up medication to make sure that they are issuing the correct drug. I'm sure there are other things that as a patient we dont know about.
At the same time they have to try and answer the phone within three rings
and sort out the problem for the patient, ie make an appointment, give out results etc.
They have to deal with any problems/queries from the pharmacy
They have to deal with any problems from the Doctor eg looking up notes etc
They have to register any new patients that happen to come in and need to see a Dr urgently.

Could you imaginge the impact of having to stand around outside the Drs room for the oppertunity to ask the Dr if he would sign the script would have on their work. Time which could be spent doing something else. If the patients found out they could do that everyone would do it and no one would get anything done in the surgery including the DR. The receptionists at our surgery do their best to help but they cant wave a magic wand. They must get cross when the same person says "sorry I forgot to put this request in and I need it urgently" every month.

Like wise appointments the receptionist dont ask why you need the appointment. if there is an available appointment they will let you have it. If all the appointments have gone they cant give you one. If you say it is an emergency then you will be seen that day.The only time I've known them to ask briefly what it is about is when you book to see a nurse. They want to make sure they give you an appointment with the right nurse and in the right room.

The receptionists dont make up the rules they just have to stick to them. But there is no need for the receptionist or patient to be rude. On the whole the receptionist at my surgery do a good job.

We used to have an old battle axe of a receptionist she would want to know
everything ..there was a few times that she forgot that i was there waiting for my appointment and she never once apologised, but then the doctors surgery moved to the bottom of the town
and i believe she retired . We now have some very nice receptionists .
:-D :-D

Or given a 'below the belt' reply :-D

you should have said you thought you were pregnant Roy!!!!

AnnCardiff, That was the basic context of what i said when she asked me Why do you need to see the doctor when i asked for the appointment :-D

Roy

Roy, I should have taken you with me this morning lol. ;-)

I would report that receptionist AnnMarie and I would tell her I was doing so and why!!