Playbook, pharmacy
Work out which account it is before anybody tries to fix it
A pharmacy that lets people order repeats online has an account system, and somebody who cannot get into it is often not describing yours. They may mean the application their surgery runs, or they may mean the setting that decides which pharmacy their prescriptions are sent to. Three separate things with three separate owners.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for account access problems holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The ordering account is a front door for requests rather than a record of anything, so being locked out delays an order and exposes nothing, which is a genuinely reassuring thing to be able to say first.
- People routinely mean the prescriber's own application rather than the pharmacy's, and an assistant that starts explaining your login has sent somebody down a path that cannot end anywhere useful.
- The nomination routing prescriptions to this pharmacy is not held inside the ordering account, so anybody who deletes an account expecting things to stop arriving here will be surprised for months afterwards.
- Carers and relatives ask for access to somebody else's ordering constantly, and that is a question about authority rather than about a password, which no automated reply has any business answering.
How it arrives
- i cannot log in to order my repeat
- is this the same login as the surgery app
- my husband wants me to order for him
- i never got the confirmation when i registered
- can you see if i have an account with you
- how do i order my repeat without an account
What has to be indexed for this to work
| What the ordering account does, and what it does not | That it submits a request and where that request goes. Say plainly that it does not show a medical record, because that assumption sits behind a lot of the anxious messages about being locked out. |
|---|---|
| How somebody registers, including any check you make | Whether registration needs anything shown at the counter and how long that takes. It explains why starting a new account is not a way around a login problem. |
| The other ways to order | In person, by phone, through a prescriber's service, on a form. Somebody stuck at a login needs a route today, and the account is very rarely the only one you have. |
| Your position on ordering for another person | What a carer or a relative has to do, and who agrees it. Describe a process rather than a permission, because the permission is granted by people who can ask questions. |
The reply
Our ordering account is only there to send us repeat requests, so if you cannot get in, nothing about your prescriptions is stuck behind it and you can still order the other ways listed on our page [1]. If the login you mean is the application your surgery runs, that is a different system and they look after it. I cannot see accounts or check whether one exists, so if it is ours and it will not let you in, leave me your name and an email and the team will look [2].
It defuses the anxiety first, because most people locked out assume something important has become unreachable. It separates the surgery's system from the pharmacy's in one sentence, which is the commonest cause of a wasted exchange here. And it declines to confirm whether an account exists, since that would confirm the person is a customer.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor wants an account looked at, wants ordering set up on somebody else's behalf, or says a registration never completed.
I cannot see accounts or set one up, and ordering for another person has to be agreed by the team. Leave me your name and an email with what is happening, and they will pick it up.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never confirm whether an account exists for a name, an email address or a phone number.
- Never read back, describe or hint at what is on somebody's repeat list.
- Never say a relative or a carer may order for somebody, because that is agreed by the pharmacy and not by a page.
- Never tell anybody how long they can go without ordering, which is a question about their medicine rather than their login.
Questions
- Can it unlock an account?
- No. It cannot see, change or create anything, so every login problem ends as a message to your team. What it can do is give the person a way to order today, which is what they actually needed.
- How do we stop it answering for the surgery's app?
- Write one line naming the difference and put it where the assistant will find it. Without that line it will helpfully explain your login to somebody who has never had one, and they leave more confused than they arrived.
- Is it safe to say we have no record of an account?
- It should not say that at all. Confirming an email is not registered is a small disclosure. Confirming one is registered is a larger one. Neither belongs in a reply nobody has verified.
Keep reading
- Everything for a pharmacyOpening hours, services and prescription collection are safe ground. Anything about a medicine belongs with the pharmacist.
- Handling account access problems in generalLocked out, wrong email, a colleague who left, no admin remaining. Identity cannot be checked in a widget, so explain, collect, hand over.
- The reset went to an address they stopped using years agoMost pharmacy password resets fail on an old email address or a check made once at the counter, not on the reset link itself.
- What can actually be cancelled once a pharmacy is involvedA delivery, an appointment and an ordering account can be cancelled. A prescription already signed and sent cannot be stopped here.
- Getting a pharmacy opening hours answer exactly rightLunchtime closures, bank holidays and dispensing cut offs. Why a wrong closing time costs somebody their evening.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.