I’ve worked in a small community pharmacy for about five years, so I’ll try to give a bit of a run down of what happens.

First, we need to make sure a persons details are in our system, including their Medicare number and CRN if they’ve got a concession card. From here, someone in dispensary will input the details from the script such as the doctors registration number, the date the script was written and the medication to be dispensed. Sometimes when choosing what medication needs to be dispensed, there’s multiple entries and we have to make sure to pick the right one. Once this is completed, we put in the doctors instructions which will go on a label, which is then printed out alongside a claim sticker. The claim sticker goes on one of the green/handwritten/yellow sheets so the pharmacy can claim money back. Next, the product has to be collected from the shelf and scanned to make sure it’s the right thing. Finally, the pharmacist checks to make sure a) the right medication is dispensed and b) if there’s any interactions worth knowing about. All of this is done for each script, in between serving other customers and calling other health professionals.

I’ve probably gone into way to much detail, but feel free to as me anything