Sam called to talk to an advocate after he couldn't get his prescription filled. He had sent a message to the pharmacy requesting his repeat. When he arrived to pick it up, he was told it could not be supplied. He asked the pharmacist why they didn't let him know they couldn't provide it prior. The pharmacist couldn't answer his questions and kept pointing to the computer screen. Sam left without his medication, unsure whether it was OK that he would run out of his pills the next day.

Sam spoke to an advocate about his concerns. The advocate asked him what he planned to do about his prescription. Sam said he had worked this out with help from the nurse at his medical centre. Sam and the advocate discussed what would help him move on from this. Sam said he had now found a new pharmacy. But he didn't want others to receive the same care from the first pharmacy.

The advocate explained that Sam could write a letter to the pharmacy. He could ask why this happened and whether his feedback could be used to improve their service. Sam said he would like to do this as he would then know he did all he could to put things right.

The advocate talked with Sam about what to put in the letter, who to send it to and emailed him some ideas to start from. Sam wrote a simple letter. He got back in touch with the advocate to check whether he was getting his points across.

After sending the letter Sam moved on from what happened. This was because the advocate had said that it would be up to the Pharmacy to make any changes to their service.

When Sam read the response from the manager at the Pharmacy, he was unsure what some of the points meant. He phoned the advocate and together they worked it out. There had been a problem with how the pharmacist had put the information into the computer. Action was taken to put this right, and they apologised to Sam. They said that the pharmacist had learnt how to do it correctly next time. Sam was happy that they had worked out how things went wrong and that this would not happen to others.