Couriers a warning

Jim the Geordie · 2026-06-01T10:33:07+00:00

I was expecting a parcel two days ago and got an email telling me that the courier (Royal Mail) had attempted to deliver. I was at home and have doorbell and knocker.The parcel was duly delivered the next day. BUT in speaking to the (regular) driver it turned out that his replacement had probably not tried to deliver my package, but also had not attempted to deliver a Prescription to someone who needed it. The driver would have to report his replacement to save his own name,I was contemplating having my many repeat prescriptions (some of which would not go through a letterbox) delivered in this way. Of all the options, I assumed Royal Mail would be reliable, it seems not.

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alan_m 3 months ago

What I did was order my repeat prescription approx 3/4 weeks in advance. The approved prescription was then sent to the local pharmacy. I left it a week to pick up by which time everything was bagged and a member of staff just handed over the bag. Leaving a week for pick-up gave the pharmacy time to source any items they didn't have in stock.

That's what used to happen.......

The pharmacy has changed hands. Now what happens is nothing is done in the customers absence. Leave the prescription a week before picking up and now its not bagged up. The pharmacist will only start preparing the prescription when you reach the counter. This has resulted in long queues. An hour waiting to get to the counter and other staff in the shop receiving a lot of abuse. I've been told that the long queues have been going on since the new pharmacist took over 3 weeks ago. It gets worse, as they don't process that prescription until I'm there any missing item results in a shortage note and another 1 hour of queuing to get hold of it a few days later. I'm about to change the pharmacy where my prescription is delivered but unfortunately this will result in a 30 minute round trip rather then the two minute walk each way to the pharmacy I previously used.

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Davey 3 months ago

And that's pretty much what happens here. The pharmacy is part of the Health Centre, I order online about 8 days before I need them. I get a text message, the timing of which is a bit haphazard, and I go up to the pharmacy either when convenient or on the 8th day. Confirm d-o-b and address, and away. Occasionally, an item is back-ordered, but I have never been left without a drug.

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Joe 3 months ago

Odd. This is exactly what happened at my local pharmacy a few months ago. The counter staff haven't changed, nor has at least one of the backroom people. I'm told it is just a result of a heavy workload since Easter. It's one of the Shadforth chain. It's a fairly small one, so queues not too bad.

On a related note, if your pharmacy really can't get something, and my local uses at least three suppliers that I know of, they will return the prescription to you, but only in its entirety. Boots have a website on which the stock levels of medicines can be checked at various nearby branches.

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Jim the Geordie 3 months ago

A PS I was in my local Morrisons today. They neither do the email thing nor deliver. That's one off my future list. :(

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Sam Plusnet 3 months ago

Going back a few years (pre-Covid) I found there was only a tiny window of opportunity between the Surgery rejecting a (repeat) prescription request (because it was too early) and the Pharmacy saying they hadn't enough time to process the prescription - before I ran out of drugs.>

Ours changed hands around 2 years ago. Things got so bad that around

40% of customers decided to switch to other pharmacies in the area.

This meant that they could now cope with the reduced demand, but I wonder if the chain it belongs to will decide to close the place - because it isn't making the profit that they expected.

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Davey 3 months ago

Your Morrison's has a pharmacy? What next!

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The Natural Philosopher 3 months ago

My local Tesco has one. Never been in it

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Marland 3 months ago

We get our prescriptions from the surgery’s in house dispensary . The rule at ours is that you have to live more than one mile from a chemist. The way they describe it on the surgeries website it sounds like if not an actual rule it is an NHS ( England) guideline.

GH

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Jim the Geordie 3 months ago

The rest of the store pretty awful, but the pharmacy is good, and busy.

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Indy Jess John 3 months ago

I have a relative that has no internet, and if she wants something she can't find in the local shops she phones me and I order it for delivery to her.

I ordered a couple of cables (her dog had chewed the ones he had, luckily not connected at the time). The company I ordered from chose Royal Mail to deliver. I give my email address on these orders so that I can phone through any delivery news.

These two cables shouldn't have been a problem. Yet I got an email one day from Royal Mail saying that they "knocked and there was nobody in. Will try again tomorrow". I phoned that through and was told that she had been in all day, and if anybody had knocked the dog would have barked and that didn't happen. The next day, exactly the same thing happened again. On the third day the envelope with the cables in was dropped through the letterbox. There never had been a need to knock.

Where I live there are two roads with similar names. My regular PM postman always delivers to the right address. Stand-in postmen quite often deliver to the wrong address. If it is a tracked parcel and I get the email saying it has been delivered and I haven't got it, I know I have to walk round to the same house number in a different road to collect it.

Evri is very good round here because we have a reliable driver who knows his patch. He knows which houses will take parcels in if the intended recipient isn't at home, and I sometimes get him knocking on my door to ask if I will take something in for a neighbour, because he knows the three neighbour addresses that I will look after. I also know which two neighbours take things in for me. I am fully aware that other people's experience of Evri is rather different to that.

The bad apple among the couriers in my area used to be Yodel. I was expecting a parcel via Yodel, so when the courier knocked on my door and stuck a small parcel in my hand i thought it had arrived. When I looked at the parcel after he had driven off it had a different name and address on it. It was only a 5 minute walk away so I delivered it myself. It has been a different courier for Yodel in the last couple of months and this one seems to be delivering to the correct addresses.

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