What are the hidden costs to scrapping a pharmacy repeat dispensing service? There will pressure on the overstretched surgery staff! Trying to get through on the phone to a surgery now is bad enough but if every person who forgets to put his repeat slip in on time to the surgery rings in instead there will be chaos! Telephone repeat services were phased out by surgeries many years ago due to errors , but patients always phone pharmacy in an emergency so why would they not try the surgery for help ?
Pharmacy has been tasked to push patient medicine compliance with The New Medicine service to ensure that patients take their medicines and do not relapse. These medicines will become repeats in many cases. Will CCGs take on the NMS service also? Will they monitor compliance or just re-issue willy nilly . Elderly forget to order and often have their medicines out of synchronisation, will the CCGs take on MURs as well?
What will be the cost of increased hospital admissions due to patients going without their asthma inhalers or insulin?
Who will fund the extra surgery staff who have to field the requests, the queries, and the anomalies that pharmacy staff deal with on a daily basis.
Patients will clog up the surgery waiting rooms, waiting for their prescriptions to be signed, will they have enough seats?
Pharmacy is in a no win situation as usual they are damned if they do and if they don’t, but they are an easy target to blame. I cannot help but think that the odd bad symptom is being treated here and not the route cause?