Problem with Obtaining Precription in Dosette Box

Mental health
1

I recently gave my prescription which required a dosette box into a well-known pharmacy..

They required over 3 days to deal with this - and then when I collected the medication I had to wait 15 minutes for it, I understand that they had to check it.

I was told to use a dsette box after I took a Litiuim overdose accidentally and had to go to A&E.

For me they do make a difference in that even if I am sleepy I know whether or not I have taken the med.

When I complained about the length of time  to do the preparation, thepharmacist somehow implied that they were almost doing me a favour - fitting it in when they could between other requests.

Yet on their website the pharmacy group make a big thing about the fact that they provide the Medisure boxes which is what I have been given.(a type of dosette box).

I don't wish to be treated as a second class citizen.

2

I work in a pharmacy myself, and I obviously go to other pharmacies to collect my medication so I do understand it from both sides. 

dossette boxes do require a lot of special care and attention when in preparation, if a patient comes in and wants it in one we will advise them to come back in a couple of days, the reason being is we probably already have another 5/6 prescriptions waiting with several items on and we don't want to make any errors with the labelling and the medication, with yours and their prescription. I'm honestly not too sure why you had to wait so long if you'd already left it three days, that is a bit silly. 

I have worked with so many rubbish pharmacists some of them really are just lazy and rude, and it's so annoying because it gets taken out on the dispensers that have to give the medication out. 

just trying to help you get a better understanding. hope it helped xx

3

Hi Danielle

Thanks very much for your comments.

I appreciate that there is a lot of work in preparing dosette boxes - are there "pipettes" which allow just the number of pill (1,2 or 3) to go in each slot. Even then I can imagine that the work involved is enormous.

In fact, I changed doctors with a connected issue. I had been going to a well-known supermarket pharmacy (I don't mention names because I don't want people posting about comparative experience of specific supermarkets/pharmacies etc) and collecting my prescription direct from the GP. The pharmacy asst indicated to me that the pharmacy had my prescription from the GP a week early so that I was able to collect my prescription in good time before my prescrip ended on the Sunday.

One day I went to the pharmacy on the Thu before the Sunday and they said that my surgery had said that they had only given them the prescrip that day because my scrip only ended that w/e.

I then went to collect the dosette box on the mext day.

The next month I went to the pharmacy (n the Fri, I think) and they said that for reasons I was unclear about they hadn't been given the scrip by the surgery.

I was furious - I rang up the surgery. I don't know why the prescrip hadn't been sent but the receptionist/admin said that they would fax the prescription through to the pharmacy. The pharm said that I could collect the meds on the Saturday.

But I could have been going away on holiday or for the weekend.

I immediately decided to stop the prescription collection by the pharmacy. Despite the extra work - I would collect the prescription from the surgery etc.

For 15 months I had not had to worry about remembering to order the prescription from my GP etc. Then it all started again.

I have explained why I was originally suggested to have a dosette box.

Before I sent the above post I looked about dosette boxes on the Internet.

One researcher had concluded that the use of dosette boxes had not improved on outcomes amongst patients (presumably the elderly).

Well, I am 60 (61 next week) and having all my pills in one box.

In fact, for quite a while I had used my own weekly box. This meant every Sun night laborioiusly distributing the pills to the am and pm boxes.

I was on Lithium (like horse tablets, as my mother would say), Lamotrigine, Pregabylin etc. I was severely depressed and had suicidal ideations. So there might have been a disinclination to take the meds.

Elsewhere I have discussed the sedative effect of mirtazapine. Within an hour I would be off to sleep on my couch. I might wake up at 4.30 and get in to my bed. I might then not be able to remember whether I had taken my tabs - on the particular occasion I took the Lithium and then remembered I had possibly already taken it - I immediately went up to A&E. Tests confirmed that this was the case.

I quite often now forget to take a tab but I just carry on without it - I am only on a few meds, in fact).

The only problem that I have had with a dosette box is that they obviously look the same upside down. On more than one occasion, in the near dark, I have started to take the am rather than the pm set of pills.

But in summary having a dosette box has changed the whole quality of my life.

Only a final rider if I am having a girl around I have to remember to put the box away because they are likely to ask me about it!

Sorry for the long piece.

Just one thing is the pharmacist supposed to double-check the meds immediately before they are handed to the patient?

Nick

 

4

in every pharmacy I have worked in, the communications between the pharmacy and the doctors surgery is absolutely shocking! our pharmacy works very closely with 5 other surgery a and in my opinion (and it may be different where you are) the receptionists are just so unhelpful and lazy, they really can't be bothered to help. and now that we've switched over to electronic prescriptions it's ever worse! 

it is good practice to have the pharmacist to double check a dossette before its handed out just to triple check that there are definitely no errors at all. could they not switch the mirtazipine so that you could take it at night? 

because I work in pharmacy and I know how easy it is for both sides - the pharmacy and the doctors - to mess it up, I collect it myself and take it wherever, mainly because I am quite short tempered and it it's not ready on time I do get annoyed very easily so it just saves the hassle smile 

we don't use pipettes at the pharmacy I'm in, what we'll do is pop all of the tablets out onto a counting triangle and transfer them to the dossette with a pair of tweezers - I'm not entirely sure which is quicker or better. 

and happy birthday for next week, have a lovely day! smile