why I don't like Tesco's pharmacy

Written: 02/02/07

I went into Tesco yesterday to get a prescription dispensed. Now normally I get Milton Surgery to put it in for me and then there's a 50:50 chance they'll have actually got it ready when I go in to pick it up, but I was in a hurry yesterday so I went in person.

This was a mistake.

First problem. The waiting time on prescriptions is thirty minutes rather than the normal 10-20. It's 11am so I figure I might as well have an early lunch so I go to their café. Their free papers don't include The Guardian so I go and buy my own, then order a toasted ham and cheese sandwich. They'll bring it over for me.

Ten minutes goes by and no sandwich.

Finally an assistant appears. "Were you the person that ordered a toasted sandwich?"

"Yes."

"I've burned it ... and we don't have any more. Will a cheese and spring onion do?"

Sigh. So anyway I had the second sandwich, which was fine, and finished my coffee, which was OK ... ish and then I wander back to the pharmacy.

"We've done your prescription ... but we didn't have enough Epilim Chrono so we've given you half and you'll have to come back for the rest tomorrow". She handed me a chitty and told me to come back after 10am.

Joy. So another visit to the hellhole of Milton Tesco, but at least it will be quicker this time.

So today I go back to pick up the rest of the prescription. It's 11:30 so I've left them lots of time. I go to the pharmacy counter. "Oh, sorry, I can't give you that at the moment - the pharmacist has popped out for a moment, she'll be back in a few minutes".

As it happens Beth has asked me to get some shopping while I'm there (there's a couple of things Waitrose don't do) so I get those and browse in their DVDs aisle for bit. Then about ten minutes I wander back and join the queue. When I get to the front I offer up my chitty again.

She looks through the pile of prescriptions waiting for collection. She clearly can't find mine. Then she looks through another pile. And then she comes back to me. "It still needs to be 'checked'" she says - in other words despite me coming in an hour and a half after the time they said it would be ready, it's not.

By this time I'm feeling distinctly unwell: I've just come out of a meeting, I had a (for me relatively mild) migraine this morning which my magic drugs did knock down but still left me a bit spaced out and I've now got a tension headache too. So I stand at the counter swaying gently as I don't feel up to moving again and watch her serve other customers which the pharmacist does her stuff.

Finally my drugs are ready and the pharmacist hands them to me. As she does the assistant says to the next person "can I help you?". Before she can reply I say "while I'm here I'd like some Loperamide too please". She turns and looks at me.

"I'm serving another customer at the moment."

I gave up and left.
 

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