"Very good patient care, very poor outpatient..."

I'm a regular visitor to the Dermatology department and rate the service highly. The most frustrating and time consuming part of the visit is that of the phlebotomy and pharmacy elements. Phlebotomy is often busy but generally at peak times it's well staffed and progress is steady and predictable. Boots took sole control of the outpatient pharmacy some years ago and my experience with them is one of consistent frustration and dread. There's normally a board indicating the expected waiting time, from when you submit your prescription, I've learned to at least double that figure. First of all you have to negotiate the single queue to submit your prescription, it's ever so inefficient, you can factor at least 3 mins per person and the queue is rarely less than 5 deep, so that's 15 mins on a good day just to hand in a form, today I waited 20 mins in what was a short queue by usual standards. Opening 2 desks would at least help that flow a little better. Then the 25 min wait, today was probably my worst experience, in reality it was a 1 hour 10 min wait to get my prescription. I generally have one item and not overly unusual or complex. I thought I'd missed my call, there's no-one to ask so you have to join the queue again to query what's happening. Another 15 mins waiting to be told they're just working on my prescription now and it'll be 5 mins. It was nearly 15 mins and no apologies about the delay. I believe I've asked the question before of my consultant, is there an alternative to a hospital outpatient prescription, perhaps a local pharmacy who can provide a better service. I seem to remember being told that unfortunately that isn't an option and the consultant shared my frustration with the service, it seems to be common feedback.