Local Pharmacy Services Support

This is a report by Healthwatch Rochdale.

Following a discussion at Healthwatch Rochdale’s Advisory Group the office wanted to hear people’s experience of using these services in Heywood, Middleton, Rochdale & Pennines.

A survey was carried out which ran from Wednesday 9th September until Monday 7th November 2022. The survey had a total of 131 responses & quotes from this survey will be shared within this report.

Findings from this survey show that overall people are happy with the service they receive from their pharmacy and their staff. Our findings show that a sizeable number of people we spoke to had never heard of the NHS Minor Ailment Scheme and were unaware if this service was offered at their pharmacy.

There are recommendations and follow up actions in the report.

Recommendation – For pharmacies who provide the NHS Minor Ailment Scheme to advertise they provide the service though a leaflet or flyer available on counters, windows or on noticeboards.

Next steps – Healthwatch Rochdale will complete a mystery shopper exercise on all the pharmacy’s that are sign up to deliver the minor aliments scheme to ensure this is well advertised within the individual pharmacies across the borough. 

The biggest issue people reported when collecting prescriptions was medication being out of stock. It is unclear if these are

repeat prescriptions or prescriptions that have just been issued.

Recommendation – For patients to be updated of the timeframe on when a repeat prescription will be ready upon request. 

Recommendation – For pharmacies to inform patients how long it will take for medication to be in stock & signpost patients to other pharmacies if medication needed that day.

Next Steps – Healthwatch Rochdale will be writing to all local pharmacies to inform them of our work and findings and asking them to ensure better information sharing with patients is considered. This will be reviewed and followed up but a future quick-fire survey on Pharmacy’s in 6 months times to track any improvements to our findings and also reach deeper grass root communities. 

Recommendation - For local pharmacies and GPS to work closely together. Local primary care colleagues to attend and be accountable at PLACE level through the HMR Primary Care Commissioning Committee.