Pharmacy counter staff useless

Pharmacists have no obligation to sell medicines to anyone if in their opinion it would be inappropriate to do so. Every year a couple of pharmacists get struck off for making inappropriate sales. Furthermore, since earlier this year we've had to exercise much closer restrictions of sales of codeine-containing analgesics such as Syndol because of the potential for addiction; codeine is not particularly active but in the body is converted into morphine; and heroin (diamorphine) is essentially two morphine molecules stuck together. So yes, codeine is equally as addictive as morphine or heroin. All codeine-containing products are now required to have a warning on the box about the risk of addiction with more than infrequent, short term use. If you're needing to use Syndol daily, maybe you have got chronic daily headache from analgesic overuse and need to see your GP?
And yes, am a pharmacist and have been for 7 years after I completed my five years of training.

counter assistant, I do not think it is at all reasonable to compare syndol or nightnurse to substances such as heroin, crack or methamphetamine. Suppose a counter assistant refused a sale of syndol or nightnurse to me because they thought I was an "addict"? (it has happened)
how do I know that he or she herself is as pure as the driven snow? he or she could be using any kind of substance, legal or illeagal for all I know.

mr hicks, firstly syndol is not a over the counter medication is a pharmacy medication, which does make a difference, and secondly addictions to syndol and/or night nurse and such are as much of a addiction as illegal drugs, a addiction is a addiction whether its legal to buy the product or not.

in response to a comment on this page, I would like to add there are many questions and information a pharmacy assistance needs to ask, and if they have any suspicion on if the drug is being abused they are allowed to refer you to the pharmacist who can get a better view on the situation and use his/her judgement on whether to sell that product or not. if a drug is being miss used pharmacy's are not obliged to sell you them.

im sorry you had such a bad experience although I can reassure you that most pharmacies aren't like that and the health care assistants are usually trained and very helpful.

some people are just down right rude wether u help them or not,its a spoonful of manners what they need.

ste, a pharmacy assistant has the legal obligation to ask two questions to a person wishing to purchase an over the counter product like syndol, the first is, is this medicine for yourself? and the second is have you used this medication before? if the customer answers yes to both questions the counter assistant or pharmacist has a legal obligation to sell the product. Also when talking about addiction ste, I think you need to differentiate between simple things like syndol or nightnurse and REAL addictive drugs such as heroin or morphine.

I work in a pharmacy for asda and we are trained and give adivce to the products we sell, for the lady complaing about the sleeping pills. If u buy them regually you will not beallowed them. They are for tempory use, if you have a sleep problem, you should be seeing the doctor. Sales of sleeping tablets are sold behind a pharmacy counter as you can become addictive to them this is why you would of been refused this sale. Asking nicely will not change the fact you have had them alot or recently. A sale once a month is enough if that for temp use, with out a perscription.

Has anybody else been refused an over the counter medicine out there?

I take a couple of syndols every night, it gets me off to sleep nicely. However on a number of occasions including this morning I have actually been refused, despite asking politely and having the money. I think this is totally outrageous. The syndol company want to sell me their product and I wish to buy their product. It is not fair on the workers of the syndol company (based in oldham) that pharmacy workers block the sale of their product. The law should be that if a person wishes to buy an over the counter product he should be sold that product !

I can sympathise with your comments, but having just started work as a complete novice in a pharmacy, I have to say that I have had a bit of a shock with how much I need to learn about selling over the counter products. Although I am sure I'm doing a better job than the assistant you are talking about!

shutup u soft get if it was that easy why didnt you directly ask for something instead of asking questions. yes it may of been easy but obviously they didnt like the look of you

I am a trained counter assistant at SUPERDRUG and have worked there for 4 yrs. Prior to that I have also worked at Boots and Lloyds. Firstly I would have suggested an antihistamine to reduce the itching. Piriton is good but can make you drowsy. My favourite in the non-drowsy department is Benadryl (in the blue box not the orange one). Secondly to rub on the actual site, Anthisan which is a topical anti-histamine. Histamine is a chemical the body produces in reaction to a bite or nettle sting (hence "anti-histamine"). This chemical is what gives you the itching. On point number 2, as we work in a busy City centre, our pharmacist has a half-hour break at 2pm so that we can be as helpful as possible. Some of us are well trained, next time pick us!