Your COVID-19 Stories: What is Our worth as Community Pharmacies?

Published: Tue, 04/21/20

Your COVID-19 Stories

What is Our Worth as Community Pharmacies?

Dear Member,

Thank you for sharing your COVID-19 stories and experiences with us! It is extremely important for us to collect these stories for you so we can campaign for our worth as Community Pharmacies.

We are using your experiences and sharing these with the NPA, PSNC, politicians, etc to shout about the value we bring to the NHS. Importantly this piece of work is going to be critical for the future particularly once this emergency is over and we will again be targeted for funding cuts. We will require all this evidence to be presented to remake our case for bricks and mortar and retaining a network.

Politicians have short memories and they will need reminding! We urge you to start sharing now! We need to be inundated with examples.

We thought we would share a few stories of how we have shown how our Pharmacies have been going above and beyond:

1. "Just saved a 12 year old boy from going into anaphylaxis. He had a nut allergy, and possibly ate something nutty. Had difficulty in breathing, and rash. No adrenaline administered. Gave Chlorphenamine syrup to ease the allergy and waited with him for 20mins until breathing got back to normal (Epipen at ready, just in case). Mum and dad were really happy 😊. As per routine, advised to seek medical advice if required with GP or 999 if starts deteriorating."

2. "A young man came in with a very large deep cut from a tin can on his hand over 25mm in length. He had tried to access his GP, NHS 111 and a walk in centre. None of these could see him. He had used white masking tape & tissues to try to close the wound. One hour later still with blood coming out he came to the pharmacy. We removed the tape, cleaned the wound with alcohol swabs, used sterile-strips to seal the wound and applied a large dressing. We felt he needs stitches and referred him to a minor injuries centre. This took 20 mins whilst we had a large queue of waiting patient."

3. Two key staff away so it has been challenging. Needed more organisation than ever before that I can recall n our 40 years’ experience. Customers have been very supportive. Always thank us for keeping open when the hospitals and GPs are closed. They say where would we go without you. Thank God you are open. Customers come from all areas as they do not want to queue up at supermarkets. Phone calls do not stop. So tired at the end of the day. Still we go and deliver to vulnerable isolating patients. Who are very grateful. Dentists are closed. Had problems getting a much used inhaler. Liaised with surgeries to change and source otherwise there would have been more call on NHS for asthma attacks. A customer fell down outside whom we gave dressings saving a visit to the hospital."

4. "An elderly patient came to our pharmacy claiming he was suffering with constipation. After asking him various questions and giving him advice, he was sold an OTC laxative. That didn’t work so a couple of days later he came back and bought another laxative. He then came back twice with different prescriptions from the GP for more laxatives. So over a period of a week the patient came back and forth to the pharmacy several times, still complaining of constipation. The (PharmaPlus member) pharmacist then took the patient aside and asked him to go into more detail about his complaint and what exactly he feels. After talking with the patient in more detail the pharmacist soon realised he might be having an angina attack. He was given a GTN spray which helped with the pain. Being a Saturday and with the GP surgery closed, the ambulance was called as this had been happening for a week and we were worried about him not being able to get medical attention over the weekend. The ambulance did various tests on him. They ruled out a MI and said he thinks it is angina and for him to use the GTN spray over the weekend and contact his GP straight away on Monday morning. The patient then came back to the pharmacy on Monday morning with a prescription for ISMN tabs and a diagnosis of angina."

Click here to share your story with us NOW!

Regards,

PharmaPlus

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