A query on hold for twenty minutes
An item is missing from a prescription the patient says they always get. A strength does not match last month. A quantity looks wrong. The pharmacist needs to ask the surgery. The practice phone line is a queue, so someone emails the prescriptions team instead, or leaves a message, or writes it in the surgery's query book when the driver next goes round.
Two days later the patient comes in. Nobody is sure whether the surgery replied. The email might be in the shared inbox, or a receptionist might have rung back and told whoever answered. The bag is on the owings shelf with a note on it.
Why queries go missing
A query is a conversation between two busy organisations, each with their own inboxes, phone queues and staff rotas. The pharmacy sends it one way, and the answer comes back another: a new prescription arrives on EPS with no message, or a receptionist rings back and the call is taken by someone who did not send the query.
The pharmacy has no list of open queries. So the only way to know one is outstanding is to remember it, or to find the bag with the note.
Surgeries are not the villains here. Their prescriptions teams are dealing with requests from several pharmacies, patients and care homes at once. A query that arrives by voicemail at four o'clock with no reference is hard for them to act on. A clear, logged query sent to the right address is easier for both sides.
The cost of queries in limbo
| Symptom | What it costs |
|---|---|
| Patient comes in to nothing | An awkward conversation and a second trip for them |
| Query sent twice | Surgery staff get irritated and relations suffer |
| Reply not linked to the bag | The corrected prescription arrives but the bag is not made up |
| No history | You cannot show a surgery how many queries are waiting on them |
The query tracker we build
- One place to log a query, from the bench or the counter: patient, surgery, item, the question, who raised it and how it was sent.
- Sending from the tracker by email to the surgery's prescriptions address, or NHSmail where you use it, so the query is logged and sent in one step. Phone queries are logged the same way with a note.
- Reply capture. Replies sent to the tracker's address are attached to the right query automatically. Phoned replies are added in a couple of taps by whoever takes the call.
- Link to the bag and owings, so when the query is resolved the bag is flagged for completion.
- An open queries list by surgery and by age, which is what the team checks each morning.
- A monthly summary per surgery, useful for a calm conversation about how queries could flow better.
The clinical question in each query stays with the pharmacist. The tracker only makes sure the question and its answer are not lost.
What the counter can say now
When a patient asks about their missing item, anyone on the counter can see: query sent to the surgery on Tuesday, reply received Wednesday, new prescription expected. Or: still no reply, chased this morning. That is a much better conversation than looking for a note.
Queries stop being sent twice. And the monthly summary gives you something specific to discuss at your next meeting with the practice manager.
The pharmacist also gets a cleaner morning. Instead of trying to remember which surgery they were waiting on, they open the list, see the three that are more than two days old, and decide whether to chase or to speak to the prescriber directly. The rest of the day is not punctuated by the same unanswered question.
Are your queries getting lost?
- Queries to surgeries are tracked with notes on bags
- Replies come back to whoever answers the phone
- Patients arrive before anyone knows the query was answered
- The same query has been sent twice by different staff
- You cannot say how many queries are open with each surgery