"The medical staff in eye A&E ..."

Thank you for your comments, which have been discussed with the Trust's pharmacy team. They agree with you about the issue of answering the phone, although often these are urgent requests from within the hospital. The team are looking in to how they can change the system so patients queuing to be seen are not left with the impression that they are being ignored.

With regard to the prescriptions themselves, there are several good reasons why it is important that they are dispensed from the hospital rather than a community hospital. Two of these are that some drugs prescribed in hospital are not carried as stock items routinely by local pharmacies, which can add considerably to the time taken to have them discharged. A second important reason is that pharmacy staff can have a need to check with the prescriber about aspects of the medication being prescribed. Clearly that is far easier for hospital pharmacy staff to do, compared to their colleagues in community pharmacies.

As for the waiting time, while the pharmacy robot does speed up the physical dispensing of drugs, there are still a number of important steps that need to be carried out to ensure that the right medication is provided to the right patients. We never like people to wait longer than necessary, but it is important to get these important matters right.