HIV Pharmacy Services
The medicines used to treat HIV are called Anti-retroviral medicines (ARVs). These are hospital only medicines, which means you will always get them from us. Your GP will not be able to prescribe these medicines for you, and you will not be able to take a prescription from the hospital to your local community pharmacist.
This means that it is important that your GP knows which anti-retroviral medicines you are taking, and that they check that any new medicines they prescribe for you do not cause problems with your HIV medicines.
How ARVs are dispensed
There are two ways in which you can get your ARV prescriptions dispensed.
Boots Hospital Pharmacy
Boots pharmacy is located on C floor at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital. You can take your prescription to Boots and collect your medicines straight away. If it is convenient, you can hand your prescription in and come back to collect your medicines another time.
Alternatively, you can ask that your medicines are delivered to a Boots store close to your home or place of work (within Sheffield, or Barnsley Cheapside Boots only). These prescriptions are written on blue paper. Boots can only dispense hospital prescriptions and are not able to dispense any prescription written by your GP.
Boots Hospital Pharmacy opening hours:
Mon-Fri: 8.30am-7pm
Saturday: 9am-2pm
Sunday: Closed
Tel: 0114 2712552
Outside of these hours, if you need your ARVs in an emergency and have a blue STH out-patient prescription, it may be able to be dispensed by the in-patient pharmacy (just round the corner from Boots on C floor).
Healthnet Homecare
Homecare can deliver your ARVs to a nominated address (usually your home address). This means you are able to leave the hospital as soon as your appointment is over and you will not have to wait in Boots for your medicines to be dispensed. The standard time for Homecare to deliver your medicines, after your appointment, is seven days. You must be able to take phone calls from the homecare company to arrange delivery, and you must be able to receive your delivery at the agreed time.
What if I am running out of medication?
It is very important that you never run out of medication.
Ideally, you should always have around one month’s supply of medication at home when you attend clinic for your next appointment. If however you find you are running low and you will run out before your next appointment, please ring the specialist nurses immediately. If you have only a few days left, even if you normally have your medicines delivered by Homecare, there may not be enough time to arrange this and you may need to come to the hospital to collect a prescription from the hospital Boots pharmacy.
Medicines Information
You may call our medicines advice line to ask any questions you may have about your ARV medication, including about side effects, how to take them, and problems with any other medication you are taking. The advice line is open Mon-Fri 9am-5pm.
Contact numbers
Boots Out-patients Hospital Pharmacy: 0114 2712552
STH in-patients pharmacy (when Boots is closed): 0114 2712424 or via the main hospital switchboard on 0114 2711900
Medicines Advice Line: 0114 2714371 or 0114 2713296
Healthnet Homecare: 0800 1934552