Issued on behalf of The Thornton Practice and The Village Practice

Posted by: marcia - Posted on:

There is currently a serious situation at Lloyds Pharmacy, Thornton Medical Centre. Due to a combination of IT issues and lack of pharmacist cover they have been unable to dispense prescriptions for the past week.

Based on current information, they may have a pharmacist on Thursday 28th July and their usual pharmacist returns on Monday 1 August.

Whilst we share a building, Lloyds Pharmacy is not affiliated with the practices in any way.

The practices have raised this issue as a serious incident with Pharmacy Lancashire, Lloyds Pharmacy Head Office and NHS England. NHS England are now working to help resolve the problems.

There is a team of junior staff at Lloyds Thornton Medical Centre who are working hard under huge pressure.

If you contact the pharmacy by phone or in person, they will be able to upload your prescription back to the NHS Spine so you can obtain it from another pharmacy (or dispense from there if they have a pharmacist).

There is also a way to obtain an emergency supply, details are at the end of this statement.

Please only contact your practice for a new prescription if you have tried to resolve your problem already (by contacting Lloyds or obtaining an emergency supply online or by calling 111), and you have an urgent need for medication.

If you have medication delivered, don’t worry, the pharmacy team have a solution for these patients, and they will be delivered as normal.

If you run out of prescription medicine and do not have a prescription with you, you can get a FREE NHS emergency supply from a pharmacy without a prescription.

To do this either ring 111 or use the online portal 

https://111.nhs.uk

Select START then confirm you do not need 999.

Select “get a prescription or find medicines information”.

Select “I need an emergency supply of my prescribed medicines”

Then answer the questions to get details of the nearest pharmacy to you that can give you an emergency supply.

You’ll be assessed by the pharmacist to find out:

  • if you need the medicine immediately
  • who previously prescribed the medicine (to make sure they’re a trusted source)
  • what dose of the medicine would be appropriate for you to take

The pharmacist needs to know the answers to all of these questions before they can supply a prescription-only medicine without a prescription in an emergency. They will keep a record of your details, the medicine they provide and the nature of the emergency.

If the pharmacist is not satisfied that the medicine and dose is appropriate for you, they may not supply the medicine.