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Independent proprietor Sid Dajani vents his frustration at the piles of pointless admin that take him away from patient care

Many of you who read my column on a regular basis will be experts on my run-ins with Alliance Healthcare. As a third- party customer of Alliance Healthcare, I am only privy to exclusive and agency lines. Yet through poor interoperability of online ordering systems and poor operability between the Alliance telephone staff and their own ordering system I was wrongly charged for fuel and low spend surcharges amounting to many thousands of pounds for odd items I should not have received.

I successfully claimed the monies back after more than a year because somehow my block was lifted without my permission. However, I remained vigilant in case the inefficiencies remained and thankfully so; this time I caught the problem after they took around £600.Mercifully they were a lot more responsive, took action more swiftly and it took a lot less time to repay. I am again assured that this won't happen again. I didn't ask for recompense or interest and just pray they get this sorted because I have spent so much time on this already.

It's no wonder then that I feel like I'm locked in monthly money wars, especially when you consider my monthly recheck requests to the PPD (usually around £300, but sometimes I get back as much as £750, and even £250 after a recheck-recheck!). Some of you may think I'm unlucky but I can argue I am still luckier than most pharmacists working in downtown Beirut or Northern Ireland during the 70s. But it gets worse €“ trust me, it does.

Implausible, or impossible?

Don't believe me? Implausible is not the same as impossible and we are talking here about the NHS since the reforms kicked in. Before the reforms we had clinical service payments appearing as schedules on the FP34C, which could be balanced easily. Now I'm expecting NHS England (Wessex) to pay me for flu vaccinations and out-of-hours duty claims, West Hampshire CCG for palliative care, Public Health at Hampshire County Council for EHC, Hampshire DAAT for supervised methadone and God only knows who pays me for the mini health checks and hepatitis screening because everyone I've asked doesn't know. The more I delve, the more Russian doll-like it all becomes.I get some statements with a lump sum that don't tell me what I'm being paid for, some still on the FP34C, and some electronic remittances on PharmOutcomes.

Understanding what I get paid and by whom makes the ebb and flow of the Atlantic tides,the drift of the continents and even the position of the sun across its ecliptic, far easier to comprehend. The NHS has no party political colour no politician owns our NHS, but this government has to be the worst-case scenario for our patients and us. The Conservatives €“ like Houdini €“ have tied themselves up in bureaucratic knots. But unlike Houdini, they can't escape and nor should they be allowed to after blowing billions on making matters much worse. Because of them I am now officially sponsored by pressure: no sleep, Rocky soundtracks, cans of Red Bull and, if it carries on like this, I'll be smoking Marlboro Lights. I cannot remember any other party in power which has instigated so many moments of despair at the state of the NHS.

The NHS needs to be a whole system. Each part is interdependent and when it works it should be like poetry. Stanza by stanza, pentameter by pentameter. There should be rhythm, rhyme and reason behind everything it does. For the front door of the NHS to work, all the other gatekeepers, the exit staff, the back office, everyone has to play their part ... and we do too. We always want to do the right thing. More than that, we want to do better. When time, bureaucracy and officialdom allow, we want to excel. Nothing feels as good as a job well done.

I don't think any conscientious community pharmacist goes to work looking for failure. Even though pressures and the daily grind make it more difficult, we are dedicated to the success, accomplishment and achievement of the NHS. So where's the disconnect? It's not weak or confused leadership with no vision that have let us down. Amongst other things, it boils down to years of poor government, ignorant politicians, lazy civil servants, low priority on disease prevention, powerful God-like status GPs and poor central investment. Moreover, everyone thinks they are experts in community pharmacy when they haven't worked in the field for years, if they ever did in the first place!

This goverment has to be the worst-case scenario for our patients and us

Ploughing on

Yet despite the odds, and even when we are made scapegoats for others' failures, we plough on because we are stubborn and because we care about our patients first. No matter what time of day or night, we consistently deliver, whether we are in Hampshire, Manchester, Birmingham or even Horley.

When an old friend called me for advice about her cold symptoms I advised her to go to her local pharmacy for some self-care. She visited Horley Late-Night Pharmacy, where another unsung hero of the community, Rand Al-Hindawi, showed great compassion and ensured this lady went on to help others in her professional role where a decision made could be literally between life or death.

The feedback was excellent and is repeated hundreds of thousands of times a day. Community pharmacists keep people on their feet and the country moving. So instead of putting us down, opinion leaders like Pharmacy Voice should be shouting with positivity over the rooftops. They need to be part of the solution, not self-appointed profession knockers because hard-working grass-roots pharmacists like Rand, you and I, deserve nothing less.