New Medicines Waste Campaign

A dedicated website has just been launched to help reduce medicines waste. Medicine Waste.com helps patients to get the most from their medicines and provides information adn resources (poster etc) to help GPs, pharmacists and other NHS staff to spread the word. Visit the website for more information.

Sometimes patients receive medicines they don't actually use, or use only occasionally. This means that they can lose out on the intended health benefits of their prescription. And that can be a major headache in more ways than one... 

Not only does it mean that that their symptoms can get much worse if left untreated. The latest Department for Health report suggests this can cost the NHS as much as £300 million every year on unused or partially used medication - money which could be reinvested into more front line care and services for the benefit of all. It also means that these medicines cannot be used again and need to be incinerated.

The reasons why patients don’t take all their medication can vary and audits have shown that around half of all the medication returned had not even been opened. This means that patients are ordering and receiving medication that they don’t even start to use.