Stand and deliver
A couple of weeks ago someone asked a question about our collection and delivery service and how we prevent possible abuse of the delivery service. My answer is below and I’m also posting it here since you may find it useful or have further comments to add:
In terms of policing our delivery service, we seem to do three things in the pharmacy which makes it run fairly smoothly. We:
* Charge a nominal charge if a patient requires more than one delivery a week.
* We don’t guarantee a delivery time and just say between ‘4-6pm’ for example. This isn’t a problem for the truly housebound patients, but we find that the more mobile patients prefer to collect their prescriptions rather than wait round for a delivery (since we won’t push it through the letter box or deliver it to a neighbour!!).
* If we think someone is trying it on then we will ask them again if there is no way that the script can be collected since their delivery will take up a slot that may be needed by a vulnerable housebound person.
We have always openly advertised this service and deliver between 9-11am and 4-6pm so it does take up quite a bit of staff time.
In terms of policing our delivery service, we seem to do three things in the pharmacy which makes it run fairly smoothly. We:
* Charge a nominal charge if a patient requires more than one delivery a week.
* We don’t guarantee a delivery time and just say between ‘4-6pm’ for example. This isn’t a problem for the truly housebound patients, but we find that the more mobile patients prefer to collect their prescriptions rather than wait round for a delivery (since we won’t push it through the letter box or deliver it to a neighbour!!).
* If we think someone is trying it on then we will ask them again if there is no way that the script can be collected since their delivery will take up a slot that may be needed by a vulnerable housebound person.
We have always openly advertised this service and deliver between 9-11am and 4-6pm so it does take up quite a bit of staff time.
posted by Dee Spencer at 2:14 pm
1 Comments:
Good post Dee!
As I typed in a reply to one of your posts earlier, the points you have said seem workable.
At the particular shop I'm solely in charge of (the other shops have different policies), I only deliver on a Wednesday (these are people in the community). We don't advertise the fact that we deliver (we ought to???), but when people ask, that is what we say.
Have you found that your presciption figures are going up since advertising the delivery option? And is the time spent organising the every day delivery option worth it in the end?
Sachin
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