Several spoons saved! One-stop pharmacy comes to town

A bridge too phar - macy? Not this time!

Forgive me if I was a bit sceptical.


When a new 24-hour 7-days-a-week chemist opened up within my local GP practice last month on the outskirts of Rotherham, I wasn't immediately dancing with enthusiasm (supposing dancing is ever on the agenda since M.E. struck!)

My village has several pharmacies: my usual one is the Co-operative chain chemist at the far end of the main parade of shops. Then there's another attached to a clinic near the roundabout at the other side of the dual carriageway. As well as a small herbalist who dispenses aromatherapy oils and blank looks if you ask for something in particular.

Enough pharmacies to go round, methought.

As an M.E. patient, I have several problems with the new arrangement. The counter of the new pharmacy faces back into the GP waiting room opposite where the windows are for the doctors' receptionists.

More noise.

Less quiet places to sit.

Less time to brace myself against the glare and hubbub. The voices of the pharmacy staff and the receptionists, not to mention the waiting patients has upped the volume, muddle and cross-babble in my sensitive eyes and ears. On a bad day for me, or when the surgery is busy. Insurmountable and inevitable, of course, in most public places!


You have to come in further off the street to stick your prescription in a box now. The other was a slot not far from the automatic outer door. After all these years this apparently constituted a security risk. This coincided with the opening of the new pharmacy, of course, but nobody could be just honest enough to say that caused the relocation!

For me it means a few extra energy 'spoons' spent in and out, a more awkward juggle with prescription, lid of box, walking stick and whatever else I'm trying to carry if it's a day when I have nobody with me to help in any way.

This sounds so nit-picking. Honestly, if you knew me IRL you'd know I'm not thinking this in a whiny voice but with tongue often in cheek and usual clown's hat on. I'm blogging it here because I know those who visit my blog will understand these things. And maybe find relief that somebody else understands the daily challenges they face too! 


Returning from Diabetic Clinic late one afternoon (when is Diabetic Clinic not late, plus draining, agonising bus journeys there and back?) I had a new prescription from the hospital pharmacy as I went on the way home to collect a repeat prescription for some of my usual drugs from the GP surgery. The new one was for Atorvastatin, a low dose the Diabetic consultant wanted to try because the old Simvastatin was playing havoc with my M.E. and because stopping taking it had rocketed up my cholesterol again!

When I was too brain-addled and eager to get home to protest, one of the pharmacists who filled my other regular order asked if I'd like to fill in a form. To make things 'easier' and 'smoother'. Oh yes. Why not? I'm so full of energy, clarity and co-ordination, here, aren't I? But I smiled my usual smile, listened to his spiel and dutifully filled it in/out. It was simple:  just name, address and signature on a note to my own GP authorising the dispensing of the drugs on a regular basis.

Only when I came this week to need a repeat of some other stuff did the questions start to intrude. Would they need my diabetic medical exemption card flashing round in public like the Co-op does as they bawl your particulars around to the crowded shop?

No stress, in fact. While I had been filling the form that evening, the pharmacist had made a note of my exemption card's details for future reference.

Previous scenario: need to get the prescription from the GP reception, fill in my details, exemption etc after finding somewhere quiet to sit, a pen, recall the current date, locate a surface to write etc (the chemist itself was always too chaotic for me to attempt this on their premises) then trail round to the far end of the mall, queue, find out they can't fill the prescription for twenty minutes or an hour. So kill time slumped in an impossible armless chair contemplating the incontinence aids and remaindered Girls Aloud false eyelashes.

Next find out, when your name is hollered out and you manage to remember your address in front of the deadpan staring shoppers, that at least one item is inevitably unavailable and you have to make the whole return at an unspecified hour the next day when stocks would or would not be delivered. 

If all this joy was denied and no physical prescription was given into my hands, how would I fill in the next drug list, from the old prescription, ticking the boxes by each of the drugs that stretch to a couple of sheets? Fear not, O ye of little faith! This afternoon all was explained.

My exemption card kindly waved away, all the medicines dispensed correctly in one go with no backchat, bawling, or public humiliations, I found my prescription drug list discreetly enclosed in the package. Plus an ad for the upcoming flu jab for we vulnerables (???) at the surgery in October!


All this and, miracle of all miracles, the new statin had seamlessly replaced the old on my medicine list. Unlike in the past, when the list was never updated and I often had to write on my own drugs' names and dosages in Biro and draw myself a little box at the side to tick.


We are in the 21st century guys! I've grinned so much now I really need a lie down!