PillTime: The Troublesome Truth About Online Pharmacy
PillTime: The Troublesome Truth About Online Pharmacy. Are they any good? According to PillTime’s website: “PillTime does everything your high street pharmacy does while making your life more convenient and medication easier to manage. But what happens when things go wrong and you’re left without your medication? A situation I found myself in.
Who Are PillTime?
According to PillTime: “We get your prescription from your GP, pre-pack your medication by the dose into clearly labelled pouches and deliver it to your door – as easy as that”.
As easy as that they say……Hmmmm, not my experience that’s for sure. Many of you may be thinking exactly what I thought. What a great idea, no more running to the chemist, or asking family to collect your prescription. I’ll give this a go.
But, things don’t always go as we plan. For those of you that are interested here is my experience of PillTime.
I spoke to pillTime initially to join their service. I gave them all the information regarding my medication etc. When and what I take during one day. My first batch arrived with lots and lots and lots of pouches.
I had two pouches for my morning tablets, (presumably because of the number of pills I have to take, they wouldn’t all fit into one pouch) with the information that is printed on the pouch. I had several pouches for lunchtime, although, I only have one pill to take at lunchtime so that seemed weird and then I had about four or five pouches for the evening and bedtime. So, I phoned pillTime and told them exactly what I would like in each pouch, which should leave me with 4 pouches a day. Two in the morning and one each for lunch and evening/bedtime. So I awaited my second batch.
My Issues
I received an email informing me that my next batch was due. If there are any changes to please phone them as soon as possible. I knew I had already contacted pillTime previously, regarding my medication so I had no reason to contact them now.
Approximately 10 days after receiving this email, I received a phone call telling me my doctor had not given my full prescription. Therefore they had to chase up the rest of my prescription. This would not cause any issues and my medication would be dispatched to me within the next 48 hours. This I believe was on a Monday. I explained that I was a bit concerned as my meds ran out on Thursday. I was told this would not be a problem as my meds would be with me by Friday before 1pm.
Friday, I received another call from PillTime. Informing me that one of their machines had broken and my meds missed the post. I was assured that my package was already boxed and ready to go. I’d receive my medication by Saturday, again, before 1 PM. I brought up the fact that my meds had now run out and I had no meds for that day. The lady I spoke with, assured me she was aware of this and had spoken with the pharmacists. They told her although it wasn’t the best thing to be doing it should not cause me any problems missing my medication for one day…..Hmmm I was not happy at this point and somewhat concerned as I had no meds.
More Issues
Early Saturday morning, yes you guessed it, I received yet another phone call from PillTime. Would you believe it, they were telling me again due to some sort of issue my meds had missed the post. I asked, “what a second time”? The lady was quite shocked, and asked me “has this happened before?” I explained yes, yesterday. I was assured my medication would be with me yesterday before 1 PM. Now today you’re telling me exactly the same thing, how can this be the case when I was told previously my medication was already boxed and ready to go in the post?
Obviously, she did not know of this. She apologised and said this was unacceptable. I totally agreed with her and explained once is a mistake twice is more than a coincidence but with all of that in mind, my main concern was being left without medication, therefore, what was she going to do about it?
Resolution
it was explained to me that I had two options. Option one was to wait until Monday for my pills to reach me. The second option was she could release my prescription back onto the NHS online service so I can go to my local pharmacist and get my prescription. This would be the easiest option as all she had to do was click a few buttons to get my prescription back on the system. Yeah, again a simple task, what could possibly go wrong this time?
I gave it about an hour or two and then went to the chemist, (you’ll love this bit). PillTime had not put all of my prescriptions back online, therefore the chemist was unable to dispense my full prescription. I had part of my medication but still had to wait till Monday before I could get in touch with the doctor about the rest of my prescription.
Needless to say, I didn’t give PillTime a second chance and went back to my previous method of receiving my prescriptions. Thankfully, never had an issue since!
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