What you told us about your local pharmacy services
In November, we asked 1,650 people to share their experiences of pharmacy services in England.
Community pharmacies are very widely used in England, with 72% of people telling us they used one in the past three months. People value the accessibility of community pharmacies, both in terms of the ease of getting to one and the speed of being seen once there.
But people also shared challenges to getting the most out of their pharmacy care experience. There are supply shortages on some medicines, pharmacies have closed, and rising prices prevent people from getting an NHS prescription or over-the-counter medication because they can't afford it.
Below, Carol, Sue and Joseph's stories show how worsening pharmacy services are affecting people's health and care.
Carol
Carol, 66, lives in Kingston upon Hull. For six months she struggled to find any pharmacies in the city that were providing her prescription for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
Carol needs to take medication to manage her symptoms. Otherwise, her IBS symptoms become unbearable.
“I was running around Hull to get my prescription sorted out. I couldn’t find buscopan for two or three months,” Carol explained. “For someone with IBS these medicines are critical. I couldn’t even find Gaviscon unless I paid £15 for it!”
Not being able to access her prescriptions made life very hard for Carol. “The flare-ups were constant, all the time. I was in a lot of pain.
And not being able to find her medication added additional distress, and “Stress also makes IBS worse, so it’s a vicious cycle.”
Since the beginning of the year, Carol has been able to get a supply of medicine. This has dramatically improved her life. “Before I couldn’t really go out in public. I was going straight to the shops and straight back home. And when I did go out the first thing I did was look for the toilets.”
But now, with a steady supply of medication, Carol’s quality of life is much better – she can go out and is able to socialise a lot more than before.
Sue
Sue, 59, lives in Suffolk. She told us about how difficult it’s been to get prescriptions in a reasonable time.
Sue takes prescriptions for two medications: one to treat arthritis pain and another to help control her acid reflux. Without her medication, Sue is left in discomfort and pain. She will use over-the-counter medications as a stopgap, but they’re not nearly as effective.
Sometimes, Sue has to wait more than a week between ordering her new prescription and when it’s finally available for pickup. This has left her having to ‘eke out’ doses of her medications (for example, by skipping some days). Even so, Sue sometimes runs out of her medications due to long waiting times – which leaves her in a lot of pain and discomfort and unable to leave her house or be active.
Unfortunately, this is a scenario she’s getting used to.
“Long waits are the norm now,” Sue explained. “Last time I ordered my prescription via the app on a Friday. Then told they’d be ready 11 days later, and even then, they didn’t give me the right number of pills.”
“Generally speaking, the waiting time is increasing,” Sue said. “And they can never explain why this is happening.”
Joseph
Joseph is a retired civil servant living in Essex. He told us how the cost of some medicines makes buying the treatments he needs difficult.
Joseph regularly needs to buy several products, including painkillers like paracetamol or ibuprofen, and olive oil to relieve blockages in his ears.
“The pharmacy charges £5 for a brand name olive oil, but at Savers I can find the same product under a different name for £1-1.50,” he told us. “Chemists want to charge you much more to buy a fancy name. It’s the exact same thing, but just called something else!”
Joseph doesn't have to pay for prescriptions due to his age. But some non-prescription items would make him more comfortable if he could afford them. For example, a medication spray for dry mouth symptoms costs £9 at his local pharmacy, but an affordable option isn’t available in other stores.
