Outpatient Pharmacy, King's College Hospital NHS Trust

Oh, the drama. Takes aaageeesss if you get there at the wrong time. Better take a book with you. Staff service is good, don't get me wrong but this is a bad system. Feels like we live in a third world country. This to me doesnt feel like London. Waiting for hours sometimes, literally, just to get your medication. It's time to leave the country. Oh, I forgot. I am leaving.

The staff are nice but only when they are around. The poor service is not their fault - there just aren’t enough of them when they are serving an entire hospital!

When I was there today there was one poor security dude out front and none of the counter positions were in service. There did seem to be a manager who was more worried about the layout of the queue than the fact that there was a long queue at all.

You will wait ages unless you get super lucky and you will find queueing chaos. Also the accessible ramp is a part of their queueing system so expect drama if you need to use it for actual accessibility reasons!

If you're looking for a stress free encounter with this pharmacy please visit during the weekend. It's the difference between a 3 minute visit and 3 hours.
It is open 7 days a week.
I have picked up prescription medication here multiple occasions and it has never been the staff who have been the problem with this place, at least not personally.
Expect during the week days to be waiting outside in the cold for hours. there is an organised queue to let them know what your order is, they will give you a ticket and you should receive a text (which they send most of the times); but there is no organised queue to collect your medicine. It's survival of whoever is at the front of the blob of people who huddle at the front steps hoping the security guard will grace them with an audience. Pregnant people, the elderly and the disabled have little to no accommodation, there are a few benches but you will give up your position in the blob. This is all because they only let 1 or 2 people in at a time due to Covid.

It's a zombie apocalypse but with a bad queue system. Very unbritish.

The service in the pharmacy itself is fine, they're doing a good job considering how busy they are and how many measures they have in place for Covid-19.

My issue is getting through to them on the phone, which I've never been able to do successfully despite being told to call them to check up on something.

I'll be holding for upwards of 45 minutes, get down to being first in the queue, and then the phone will either be picked up and immediately put down, or I will be told by someone to "Hold the line" and then be left on hold until the call cuts out.

Not a review of the people who work there as they are as much of victims as the poor souls who waste half their day in the waiting area. It took 1 hour and 15 mins to get my meds. Management should have a more realistic queuing system as the one they have now where they "text" you clearly isn't working. My meds were ready and they never texted, if I didn't go ask God know how long I would have been waiting for. Also a hostility this size with one outpatient pharmacy?! What madness is this?

Poor patient care service .

This make-ship bomb shed Pharmacy that KCH has outsourced for out-patients prescriptions is poor. When the service was in-house, It provided a more efficient and effective service, whereas, the current environment is not placing the Patient at the center of care, thus, paramount for patient care. I waited nearly two hours for my prescription, as all patients, regardless of if disabled, vision impaired, mothers and young children are all made to wait outside without a seating area rather on the sand on garden furniture. Children are running around the main high street, and what looks like a temporary built shed in a war zone could not contain the number of people waiting outside. I witnessed a pregnant lady fall over on the slope entrance, where two hefty guards whom resembled police officers waiting to arrest anyone about to get out of line. I accidentally dropped my bag outside the entrance area; no one could retrieve it as it fell under the actual building itself. One of the staff kindly went under the pharmacy to retrieve my bag for me as no one else could reach it. Things are not supposed to disappear under a building, then to top it all up, they did not have any of my prescriptions after waiting two long hours outside without a seat. I can't believe this building actually passed any risk assessment or health and safety checks as the building is a health hazard and a danger to patient care, neither is it placing the patient at the center of care, till date, I never received a call back about my prescription of which I resulted in buying it from a private clinic as KCH didn't have it at the time and I could not bare going through all of this once again.

If I could put no stars I would!!! It took an hour to get my prescription, which is absolutely ridiculous. As it's the main pharmacy they either need more staff or to dispense quicker. A typical prescription does not take longer 15 minutes to complete a prescription. I was a dispenser for 5 years in boots which much more understaffed than this pharmacy is and it's still done quicker!!!!

As a hospital pharmacy DO BETTER!
The worst pharmacy in South London hands down, I would suggest always asking the consultant to give you a hospital script that your GP and turn into a normal NHS prescription that can be redeemed in any pharmacy.

Appalling queue management. Told prescription 15 mins and will send text. 2 hours later no text received so can’t get past security. When I do get in my prescription has been waiting but no text sent. Average waiting time for long queue appeared to be about an hour and not so much a queue as, understandably, an angry mob.