Echo Pharmacy being delayed

[Le Mouse]

My love affair with Echo Pharmacy is pretty much over. I put in a request for my Mum's prescription middle of last week and the status has sat at 'with our pharmacists' since Monday. I messaged them yesterday and today they replied. They are having delays in their dispensary and are working through a backlog. I've had to opt for picking it up myself from a local pharmacy so Mum doesn't run out. I've got an order in with them too and I expect I will end up collecting that as well. If this is a general thing (I don't know how many dispensaries they have) it's not good news for everyone shielding until at least end of March!

[pseudonym]

I keep getting asked to get online/ delivered medication.

I keep refusing. The top of the prescriptions says re-order when you have 7-10 days of drugs left.

I hand deliver my prescription and collect it within 4 days from the chemist. The longest I've waited is 7 days.

I have 392 days of medication built up (due to strength changes and non returns) so I am comfortable in that regard.

My chemist only allows 2 people in at anyone time.

[Lemne]

I use echo for mine and have never had a problem. I'm sure like most things where they may have staff off at the drop of a hat, things will get behind. It's very convenient as I am also shielding.

[Panther]

I will not use either our local pharmacy delivery service or any of these online delivery services; we hear too many tales of either wrong tablets being delivered or deliveries being late. Quite often this happens to the elderly or people with quite acute conditions who cannot afford their medication to be delayed. In fact our local village pharmacy is so hopeless, they are so slow you will often queue for one or two hours to be served (no exaggeration), even then they can't always find all of your prescription. So now we drive three miles to the pharmacy in the next village where there is no wait at all.
I too have gradually built up several months worth of our prescription medication as well as over the counter medication.

[Le Mouse]

I'm not too worried about my own medicines - I have built up a supply. Mum however does not / will not build up a supply because if she had too much about she'd get lost. She has dementia and she hoards rubbish a bit so she has lots of empty boxes about. I try and keep it under control to no avail - the pile builds up again! So unfortunately she has to rely on getting her meds in time. But I always order it a bit earlier than necessary so it arrives in good time. It just happens this time they were delayed and it turns out Mum hadn't told me she was very low on a particular tablet.

The lady in the pharmacy rolled her eyes when I told her what had happened with Echo - seems this isn't unheard of. To give them their due, the local Lloyds has amazing staff with frankly endless patience. As expected they didn't have all of one of the medications - Mum is on a legacy medication which no pharmacy ever has enough stock in. That's the good thing about Echo - they always do have it!!