Boots — Local services in Nottingham

Spoke to the most deliberately patronising and antagonistic man on the medicine (not pharmacy) counter. Needed a refill of a one-purpose, very common generic cream less than half way through my course of it - not addictive, practically no side effects, can’t be used recreationally etc. very unexciting. Got my first tube from another Boots no questions asked, it’s been working fantastically well. Listening to this guy you would have thought I’d asked for a sack of Ketamine or something. Almost comically sceptical expression the entire time, very loudly and repeatedly pressed for intimate details in front of a huge queue - didn’t even need the answers because I wasn’t comfortable giving them in public and he didn’t press for them. Made a bunch of completely incorrect and frankly insulting assumptions about me, loudly - got a strong sense he was deliberately trying to be humiliating. Then seemed genuinely disappointed there wasn’t anything on the label he could use as justification to stop me from buying it. He was called over because some gobby manchild some way behind me in the queue was kicking off - I also work a customer-facing role, it is frequently very unpleasant, but it is completely unacceptable for this man to be taking out his frustrations on me when I have been nothing but polite the entire time. I promise you none of this was done out of concern for me or my health. This man is clearly enjoying being ‘gatekeeper of the meds’...

Pharmacy not up to scratch and incredibly slow through no fault of the staff(some) ,but just of amount of people collecting prescriptions and unbearable workload. Nowhere near enough staff/counters to cope with the huge amount of customers this pharmacy is dealing with. Text messages from Boots saying prescriptions are ready for collection are unreliable as more often than not in our experience they aren't. We've made several wasted trips into town because of this. Sometimes our prescriptions are ready,but aren't given to us for whatever reason. Staff have apologised to us on our second visit because our prescriptions were indeed ready for collection on our first visit,but simply weren't given to us!🤔 Lazy staff?🤔 This has happened at least twice....and with the same female staff member 😕 Fast track counter service is unbelievably slow for customers who've received text messages saying their Meds are ready for collection 🤔 and usually staffed by one person 🤔 QR code system needs to be put in place. Customers go down to Boots,scan their QR code and staff should just hand over prescriptions instead of what they are doing nowadays where they look on their computer and then go searching for prescriptions/medication that are supposed to be ready for collection according to their texts 🤔 It's just too long winded and ends up just adding to already long queues of disgruntled customers and adding more stress and anxiety to overworked staff...

This review only applies to the services provided by the in-store pharmacy. I am appalled that due to the personal values and beliefs held by a certain pharmacist working at Boots, access to EHC can be refused entirely, no matter the circumstance. Due to this I found that treatment and care is not in line with the General Pharmaceutical Council. The GPhC states "Pharmacy professionals are expected to comply with the standards for pharmacy professionals and not impose their own values and beliefs on other people, and to take responsibility for ensuring that patient care is not compromised". Not only has this pharmacist imposed their own values at the expense of another persons right to access appropriate health care, the pharmacist in question certainly did not take any form of responsibility for the patient. In fact, the pharmacist did not take the responsibility to see the patient that required EHC, leading to the patient being turned away by an apologetic cashier. I understand that pharmacists can work in accordance with their own beliefs. However, I feel strongly that this patients care was compromised by the negligence of one pharmacist, which is something that should never be allowed to happen. This is highly unprofessional behavior in the eyes of the GPhC and is a serious complaint that reflects very poorly on this particular Boots...