If something happens with a medicine, we want to hear about it.

All medicines can cause side effects. Common, expected side effects are listed in the patient information leaflet (PIL) that comes with your medicine and on the medicine page on this site. If a side effect is bothering you, getting worse, or is not on the list, please tell us.

Tell us straight away if you experience any of the following, or anything else that worries you:

• Severe or persistent symptoms after taking a medicine we have supplied.
• An allergic reaction of any kind.
• A medicine that did not appear to work as expected.
• A new or worsening symptom that started after you began the medicine.
• Anything that surprised you about the medicine itself (appearance, smell, packaging).

You can reach the pharmacy team at hello@switchpharmacy.co.uk or 0116 296 9900 (Mon–Fri 09:00–18:00). Outside those hours, use NHS 111 for advice and email us when you can — do not wait for us if your symptoms are getting worse.

The MHRA Yellow Card scheme is the UK’s system for reporting suspected side effects of medicines, problems with medical devices, defective medicines, and falsified medicines. Anyone can report — you do not have to be a healthcare professional.

Reporting helps the MHRA spot signals that wouldn’t be visible in any one consultation, and is one of the most important things you can do to help future patients.

From time to time the MHRA, a marketing authorisation holder, or the manufacturer of a medicine issues a recall or a “Medicines Recall” / “Medicines Notification” alert. The Superintendent Pharmacist monitors MHRA Drug Safety Updates and Field Safety Notices and acts on any alert that affects a medicine we have supplied.

If you have received a medicine that has since been recalled, we will contact you directly — usually by email, and by phone if the recall is urgent — using the contact details on your account. We will tell you what we have done and what you need to do (for example, stop using and return the medicine to any community pharmacy for safe disposal, or continue using if the recall is at a different batch level).

A falsified medicine is one with a false representation of its identity, source, or history. Falsified medicines may contain the wrong ingredient, the wrong amount, or no active ingredient at all, and are a real risk on the unregulated internet.

Switch only sources medicines through licensed UK wholesalers under the MHRA’s Falsified Medicines Directive controls. Every pack we dispense has an authentic, MHRA-approved supply chain.

Although we do everything we can to prevent them, dispensing errors can happen anywhere. If you receive the wrong medicine, the wrong strength, the wrong quantity, the wrong patient’s pack, or a pack with anything missing, please:

1. Stop — do not take any of the medicine.
2. Email hello@switchpharmacy.co.uk with the order reference and a photo of what you received if you can.
3. Or call 0116 296 9900 — we will treat dispensing errors as a priority.

We will replace the medicine, and record the incident in our error log so we can learn from it. The Superintendent reviews every dispensing error personally.

A “near miss” is something that could have been a dispensing error but was caught by one of our checks before the medicine reached you. We log near-misses internally and review them monthly. Patterns drive improvements to our standard operating procedures, our training, and our software. You do not need to do anything about near-misses — we are recording them because they are useful for us, not because anything went wrong for you.

The pharmacy team are trained to recognise and respond to safeguarding concerns about children and adults at risk, including evidence of abuse, coercion, controlling behaviour, modern slavery, and self-harm. The Superintendent Pharmacist is our safeguarding lead.

Where we have a serious concern about the safety of a patient or another person, we will share information with the appropriate authority (the police, the local authority safeguarding team, NHS 111, or the patient’s GP) — in accordance with the GPhC’s safeguarding guidance and the Caldicott Principles. We will tell you we have done this where it is safe to do so.

If you are worried about another person, you can call NHS 111, or for an urgent concern about a child you can call the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000. If life is at immediate risk, call 999.

If you have a concern about how Switch is operating — for example you believe a prescribing pattern is unsafe, you believe we are not following the GPhC standards, or you believe a member of staff is acting unprofessionally — you can raise it with us using our complaints procedure, or directly with the GPhC at pharmacyregulation.org/raising-concerns. You do not have to tell us first.

Staff working through Switch are entitled to raise concerns under the GPhC’s Standards for Pharmacy Professionals and under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. We will not victimise anyone for raising a genuine concern in good faith.

Safety team · Switch Pharmacy
c/o Superintendent Pharmacist, 1 Stadium Place, Leicester LE4 0JS
hello@switchpharmacy.co.uk · 0116 296 9900

For something we should know straight away, please call us during pharmacy hours rather than emailing.