Thank you to everybody who commented on my post about my experience in Boot's, St Pancras on Friday. I received a bland and useless response from Boot's and have sent the following reply:
'Dear Sylvia
Thank you for your response to my complaint about my experience at your store at St Pancras station on the afternoon of Friday 25th January. I find your response entirely unsatisfactory and guess that it is a standard response for this type of complaint. This in itself is disquieting as it suggests that you receive many complaints of this kind.
As I mentioned to you I showed the pharmacist my blue Steroid Treatment Card. On the front it says 'I am a patient on STEROID treatment which must not be stopped suddenly'. The pharmacist must have been aware that I was at risk of an adrenal crisis. You say that 'without your history of medication they will not be able to offer you something they are not dispensing to you'. The card was issued by the pharmacy at the Royal Free Hospital and includes its telephone number, I had also added my GP's phone number and that of my local pharmacy. The card shows my dosage since June 2018 and gives my NHS number and my Royal Free Hospital MRN number. Your employee had the choice of calling my GP or one of two pharmacies to confirm my daily dosage of 10 mg of prednisolone. I had other ID with me which would have confirmed that I was the same person. I was willing to pay for the tablets if requested.
Your employee's action directly contradict the information on the NHS website as well as that on the website of the Royal College of Pharmacists. I wrote a post about my experience for Health Unlocked (the PMRGCAuk forum). I received a number of responses from others who had obtained supplies of prednisolone or other medication in emergency circumstances, including people who had gone on holiday without their medication.
This brings me to a point that concerns me. I live in London, fairly centrally, and was able to get the bus and be home within 35 minutes. However many people in the Euston Road are visitors to London. St Pancras station is next door to King's Cross station and a few minutes' walk from Euston station. There are Boot's pharmacies at all three stations and I am fairly sure you have stores at all major railway stations. Will any patient requesting essential medication receive the same response at any of your stores, whatever the circumstances?
I am going to send my complaint to the Royal College of Pharmacists and to my MP Jeremy Corbyn.
In conclusion I do acknowledge that I was at fault in forgetting to take my medication on Friday morning and that I should have had an emergency supply with me. However pharmacists are supposed to put the patient's welfare first, just like medical and nursing staff and it's clear from the accounts I've been sent that this was not an uncommon incident.
Best wishes
Maria McKenzie'
So now I'll have a cup of tea and then write my emails to the Royal College and to Jeremy Corbyn. I feel a bit guilty about distracting him from more momentous matters, but well he is my constituency MP so has a duty towards me.
Correlation between pred dose and immune response to covid vaccine 
DIY Blue Steroid Record Card
Letter from Consultant Rheumi in latest PMRGCAUK Newsletter 
How to manage your energy levels 
Pre-Christmas Coffee and a Catch Up, at St. Pancras 
