Part 2...
ok, the dispensing process
1) You hand your prescription to the person behind the counter. This could be anybody from the receptionist/saturday staff to the chief pharmacist. They'll look it over to make sure it's signed, dated and doesn't look forged. They may show it to another person who will know if it's a medication that is kept in stock and weather they have enough. You will probably have signed it, unless it was a repeat and payed or ticked the appropriate exemption box on the back. You're usually given an approximate time for completion. In our hospital, that's usually 45 minutes, but we tend to handle bigger, more complicated prescriptions than community pharmacies do, and have to deal with requests coming in from wards and things like that.
2)Your prescription is given to a pharmacist, he or she is probably the one in charge. He or she has a 4 year degree and a year's pre-registration training behind them, at least. They check to make sure that you've been precribed the right medication, at the right dose, for the right duration and that it won't clash with anything else you might be taking. This has to be cleared up before the medication is dispensed. It gets signed, when the pharmacist takes legal responsibilty for it.
3) It gets handed over to another person, either a pharmacist, a technician or a dispenser. A technician will have done a BTEC in pharmacy services (or equivalent) and may also hold an NVQ level 3 or 4. A dispenser will hold, or be working towards an NVQ lvl 2 (or equivalent in house training). This person will then interpret what the doctor and the pharmacist have written (and sometimes this is easier than others) and will dispense the prescription. This usually involves booking out the appropriate ammount of drugs on a computer system and printing out a label with instructions on, and your name. Then they assemble the medication.
4)The medication and the prescription are handed over to another person, either a)the orginal pharmacist or b) a third party checker, this will be another pharmacist or a suitably qualified technician. They will check that what's been dispensed agrees with the prescription, and is suitable for use (ie in date, stored correctly, packaged to the patient can take it etc etc).
5)Then somebody(pharmacist or technician probably) will give the medication back to you, hopefully checking who you are before they do so...They really also aught to check that you know what you're doing with the drugs, but my local superdrugs doesn't. And not all patients want you explain for the fiftiest time how to take paracetamol. But that's what your BTEC/NVQ is for.
That's if it all goes smoothly, not allowing for massive presciptions, contacting prescribers, stock discrepancies, stuff actually being in stock, computer problems and the like. It takes us about 45 minutes, and we could have two pharmacists, five or more dispensers and three or four checkers on the team. I've never seen more than three people in the pharmacy i use at Superdrugs (annoyingly i can't dispense or check my own medication....or order cost price test strips...). I've never worked in community but from experience, i don't think Superdrugs have ever managed the 10 minute turn around they boast in the window. If anybody here has worked in community pharmacy, feel free to correct me.
Hope that helps, it's not supposed to excuse shoddy service though, least of all losing prescriptions, it has happened where i've worked in the past, but in the last two and a half years, it's yet to happen in my current job...fingers crossed it won't.
Rachel
