Saturday Stress

I did a locum last Saturday at a pharmacy not too far from home. I was there in plenty of time so I could re-acquaint myself with the systems and staff since my last visit and sign in as RP. As I walked in through the door everything started to happen before I had even got my coat off, the delivery driver urgently needed me to check the items outstanding for the morning deliveries and a palliative care nurse was waiting anxiously for some very urgently needed CDs holding two prescriptions (one of which didn’t quite cut the mustard) and everyone was looking at me expectantly.  The word urgent took on a new meaning as I realised that I needed the code to the secure key store which only the pharmacist on duty has, except that I didn’t. Thank goodness for mobile phones, I text the pharmacist I was replacing and received a prompt reply, from Antigua! Bet she wasn’t expecting that on holiday.

The first five minutes set the tone of the whole morning which flew past. I nearly came to grief with a bottle of methadone that didn’t have the lid firmly on and we spent a lot of time trying to help an overseas patient with a foreign prescription and a limited understanding of how the supply of medicines works here in the UK. One of the staff ended up giving her a lift as by the time we had found a solution the bus she needed to catch had gone, that’s a level of service you won’t get from many places. Mobile phones showed their versatility again when a mother of a patient showed me a picture of her teenager’s red eye (could have been worse!)

When we finally closed, half an hour later than planned, I realised that there was  no way that I could have fitted in an MUR or an NMS, although I did counsel someone on their new medicines ( not eligible)  and I did manage to recruit someone for an MUR, just not there and then and not by me!