Long queues at a Banbury Boots store are giving customers a headache

Boots says the queues at the Banbury Cross Retail Park branch are caused by the closure of the Lloyds pharmacy at Sainsbury.

However the problem for customers appears to be that there is no assistance at the medicines area so those wanting to put in or collect prescriptions are waiting in the same queue as those wanting to buy over-the-counter products that do not need a prescription.

The company said it was in the process of recruiting more staff. However in the month from July, when the Banbury Guardian received its first complaint about the consistently long queues, there has been no change.

One shopper emailed the newsdesk to say: “Routinely people wanting prescriptions and medical goods are funnelled down a single queue. The dispensary is extremely busy - no doubt made worse because of the closure of the Sainsbury pharmacy.

"But there’s nothing anywhere to tell customers how long it’s going to take to dispense their medication and no one there to sell over-the-counter items.

"On two occasions when I was there, the queue had ten people in it at any one time taking 45 minutes to get to the front, and there were people with small children.

"Some of them probably aren’t feeling well anyway and the pharmacy computer system seems to take much longer than it should for checking details and for those whose prescriptions have been sent by their surgeries.

“Some people in the queue were beside themselves with frustration. There were no managers to speak to and there hadn’t been the day before either.

"How can a popular chain like Boots not provide enough staff to have someone selling medicines as well as someone doing prescriptions?”

A spokesman for Boots said: "Our store at Boots Banbury Cross Retail Park is currently seeing a higher than usual demand for prescriptions, due to the closure of a nearby pharmacy. We are recruiting additional team members to the store to allow us to continue to offer the high level of service that customers expect from Boots and we would like to thank customers for their understanding at this time.”