Why are chemists so slow

Today it took our local chemist (Boots) over an hour to produce a box of tablets about the size and weight of a cigarette packet. Why so long?

If I go to Argos, they can provide the biggest TV you can imagine within a couple of minutes from their vast warehouse. So why does such a small packet of tablets take so long and why do we accept the delays.

Sure tablets have to be checked against the prescription, but surely that doesn’t take an hour.

Why can't the doctor just give you the medicine rather than a prescription?

Surely this is all going to go online soon - I get emails everyday about online drug stores - for some reason they think i need Viagra whatever that is?

Why can't doctors just do a lot of things they used to do?  When I was a kid a fell of a gate and split my head open.  My Mam whipped me off down to the doctors who sat me in a chair, whipped out a needle 'n' thread and stitched me up there and then.  These days they write you out a prescritpion for a packet of tablets, tell you head off to the local hopsital 250 miles away by which you'd have bled to death!  Then you's sit in a que for three days and they'd have to resurrect you to do the stitching!

I went to the doctors the about a month ago with what I suspect is a trapped nerve in my shoulder, he didn't even have a look just gave me a prescription for pain killers!  Now why couldn't he just have a good massage of my shoulder to determine the true neture of the problem and deal with it there an then?

The just isn't the sa,e anymore!!

I've often wondered just why on earth chemists take so long to produce the goods.  

Surely it's simply a case of check prescription, find pills, put them in a box, give them to customer?

I remember the first time I went to go and get one, I though the chemist had died behind the counter!

As a small child I can remember some medicines having to be made up by the chemist and with that you could understand the delay.

Today it is just down to bad processes within the chemists and the NHS as a whole. As Paul said why cant the doctors give out the drugs themselves? In Wales our prescriptions are free so the NHS pays for 100% of the costs, however by giving out prescriptions they allow people like Boots and Lloyds to take a profit just for being the middle man

Yeah, I know what you mean, I have to get the occasional ventolin spray as I have mild asthma and for some reason I can be waiting well over 10 minutes. Its already boxed, so all they need to do is put a sticker on it and place it in a bag.

I use my local chemist's repeat prescription service for asthma meds which is great as I just ring up to reorder and they tell me when it'll be ready and I just walk in, collect, pay and go.

I do know what you mean about the time it takes them behing the counter though, one time that sticks in my mind was when my eldest was a baby he had a particularly nasty ear infection and was very poorly.  After a delay of nearly an hour to see the Dr, the chemist then took an hour to dispense the amoxycillin whilst I was battling with a crying baby who was in a lot of pain.  Not a pleasant experience!

If McDonald's ran the local chemist we wouldn't have these problems!!