The new owners of Westhill’s two Lloyds pharmacies have revealed plans to make it easier for people to pick up their prescriptions.
Andy and Lynne Porter, who own Porter Pharmacy, have now taken over the two Lloyds sites at the Westhill Shopping Centre and Arnhall Business Park.
The couple, who run five other pharmacies across Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, were originally planning to build Scotland’s first-ever drive-thru pharmacy in Westhill.
However, following on from the NHS consultation they realised it would take them at least a year to get the building warrants and even longer to build the pharmacy.
They instead decided to approach Lloyds to take over the existing pharmacies instead, with the aim of improving the service – potentially introducing a 24/7 pick-up kiosk.
Local anger at chaotic queues
In August, Lloyds came under fire after it temporarily closed its store in the Arnhall Business Park due to staff shortages.
The site at the shopping centre was the only pharmacy serving the whole of Westhill and became quickly overburdened, leading to “Disneyland-like queues“.
The Press and Journal was even told of prescriptions being lost in the ensuing chaos while doors were locked on customers who queued for hours to allow staff to have their lunch break.
Mr Porter said: “We did the public consultation for the new pharmacy and a lot of responses were saying if the services in the ones they had already were decent they wouldn’t need a new one.
“It looked like it would take about a year by the time we got the building warrants and to build it, so we approached Lloyds and they agreed to sell them.
“We’re going to increase all the services.”
Providing 24-hour access to medicine
The couple has submitted a planning application to install a new 24-hour dispensing kiosk after they received strong support for it during the consultation.
According to the planning application, the Pharmaself-24 will allow patients to “simply and securely” pick up their medicines when it is convenient for them.
Pharmacy staff will dispense the medicines as normal and then load the dispensed bags into the machine using a barcode.
They will also have a full-time delivery driver, which was not previously offered by Lloyds.
“That was something Westhill was crying out for,” Mr Porter said. “Especially with the weather the way it is just now and a lot of elderly people can’t get out.”
Both pharmacies will have Pharmacy First Plus, which enables pharmacists to consult and prescribe treatment for minor ailments.
The Porters are planning a refit for the chemist at Arnhall, which is next to Skene Medical Group, and to make the dispensary at the shopping centre larger to help with prescriptions.
Mr Porter finished: “The queues weren’t as bad as they were, but even the other day there was a 40-minute queue to get in, but there’s been sporadic opening hours, especially at the shopping centre.
“I know a lot of people had been having to travel the 10-mile round trip to Blackburn and back or have to go to Kingswells and I think they’ll be delighted just to have a proper full-time service on their doorstep.
“No one should have to travel that far to get pharmaceutical services.”
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