"Difficulty getting a prescription"

My wife suffers from a permanent migraine (six years and counting, self-adminstered morphine and so on).

After much consultation with the local GP at Heald Green health Centre, we finaly got to see a specialist. The specialist prescribed medication, but the GP has to actually write the prescription and the medication is collected locally. This is not a problem.

Also, the local GP has been superb - very understanding, very helpful and supremely useful in getting a referal to a specialist that is not typically available. However, the problem is with the repeated failure of the administration at the Heald Green Health Centre. Today was the final straw.

My wife recently left a prescription at the health centre. 3 days later she went to the chemist to collect (and pay for) the necessary medication. One particular drug was missing at the chemist because the health centre had missed it from the prescription. She went back to the health centre and was told to 'come back on Monday' so that the prescription could be sorted out.

The whole point is that it was an administrator who said this. And they are medically qualified to do so because...? After a 'stand off' in the surgery, my wife had her prescription sorted out and went back to the chemist who (chemists words not mine) 'luckily had some of the medication available'.

Why are non-clinical people being allowed to decide who can get what medication and when? The system is wrong, people are being made to suffer unneccesarily.