Derriford pharmacy on road to recovery

Boots' store getting better after shaky start

After initial teething problems, Derriford Hospital’s new outpatient pharmacy is now the subject of fewer complaints.

Pharmacists have told Plymouth City Council’s health and wellbeing board that the handover from Lloyds to Boots in April was “complex”.

It led to IT failures and unfulfilled prescriptions, unavailable medicines and  issues with a text messaging service.

Patients and staff struggled with new paper-free electronic prescriptions and shelves were left full of urgent but uncollected medicines.

Deputy chief pharmacist Vivek Soni said there had been a lot of negative publicity with complaints in the media and to MPs.

He said the number of complaints had dropped to zero in June and waiting times for prescriptions had reduced from over an hour to 20 to 30 minutes.

Boots had “gone over and above” and employed additional staff and its stores at Kingsbridge and Torpoint had been added to the list for collection of non-urgent medicines.

He said 300 prescriptions were sent out each month to Boots’ stores; previously patients had to attend its Derriford pharmacy to collect them.

A new courier service delivers 40 prescriptions to vulnerable patients each month and the performance of electronic prescriptions had improved.

The new outpatient pharmacy, in the hospital’s multi-storey car park, is double the size of the former one which Mr Soni said was “not fit for purpose” because of growth in demand.

The old pharmacy was too small to handle the number of prescriptions, people had to queue for a long time and it had limited space for patients to wait..

University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust invited companies to apply to run the pharmacy last year. It had since worked with Boots to resolve supply and other issues since the new provider opened with extended opening hours, including Saturdays.

Chief pharmacist Kandarp Thakkar said opening times would be reviewed in another six months.