"waiting!"

On June 27th my husband, George was admitted for knee replacement surgery. As you can see from the above ratings we were more than pleased with the treatment and care he received in all departments, including admissions. recovery and Ward 26a. However, he did have quite a long wait in recovery, waiting for a bed to become available on the ward. One possible reason for this became apparent when he was discharged on the following Monday. All checks, reviews and assessments were completed by around midday, and all that remained was the wait for his prescribed medication to come up from the Pharmacy. We waited... and waited... and waited!!! The medication finally arrived at approximately 7.45pm. Virtually 8 hours later! Clearly the system in pharmacy is completely overstretched and is just not coping with the demand. And this does seem to be the case generally, as we have learnt that this length of wait is not uncommon! George was holding up his bed space for no medical reason, for around 8 hours! I wonder if there was someone in recovery waiting for a bed to become available? One possible solution in terms of prescriptions might be:- Give patients waiting to be discharged an option, either to accept that they may have a long wait or, allow them them to have a copy of the prescription to get the medication for themselves; In which case they would be required to sign that they accept the responsibility for getting the prescription filled. We could have been home and have got the necessary tablets from our local Boots chemist by around 2pm that afternoon. I have a feeling that many patients may accept the latter option, thus taking a lot of pressure off the Pharmacy. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts about my suggestion. Yours sincerely Cyndi