Drug dispensing vending machine a first for Falkirk High Street

The new technological marvel, known as the Pharmaself 24, is located at the entrance of Callendar Pharmacy and had actually been scheduled to be installed earlier this year, but the COVID-19 crisis delayed things by a couple of months.

Richard Grahame, Callendar Pharmacy owner, said: “We would have had it up and running earlier in the year – I was actually taken by the firm that makes to see it in action.

“A vending machine is actually a good way to describe it. We load the machine with the medication and customers get a text message on their phone when their prescription is ready and they also get a pin number.

“They can then come down and enter their pin number into the machine and then pick up their prescription. It’s going to be great for shift workers who may not be able to pick up their prescription during normal working hours.

“And if there are queues of people at the pharmacy people can just use the machine to get their prescription. As well as being more practical for some customers, it also solves the problem of social distancing in the pharmacy which is obviously vital in this current environment.

“It’s the future and the Dutch are into it in a big way, there are currently around 12 in Scotland.”

Visit www.pharmaself.co.uk or www.callendarpharmacy.co.uk for more information.