Medicine madness costs £5m a year
Patients who collect unwanted prescription medicines cost Norfolk health service around £5 million every year, latest statistics have revealed.
And this figure could represent only a fraction of the cash going to waste, health chiefs have warned.
The 5 million estimate is based on medicines returned to pharmacists and GP surgeries, but does not take into account the cost of disposing of the medicines and the unknown number of people who stockpile medicines at home.
Now the cash-strapped Norfolk Primary Care Trust is launching a major new campaign to claw-back the missing millions, which could be put to good use in other areas.
It is urging patients to think more carefully about the medication they request and reminds them to tick only items they need on their repeat prescription forms.
Mr Ian Small, deputy head of prescribing at Norfolk PCT, said: "Even if a medicine is not used and is returned it still has to be destroyed for safety reasons.
"The money wasted could be used to pay towards other vital health services such as reducing heart attacks or improving care for the elderly.
"It is an astonishingly high sum of money to literally be wasting, and money that we could redirect to provide other vital healthcare."
He said the trust's prescribing budget was around 120 million per year, with waste representing four per cent of that spend, and asthma inhalers, cholesterol drugs and medicines for osteoporosis treatment were the items most often dumped.
"We do not want patients to stop taking medicines their doctors have prescribed, but we would like them to check what they have in their cupboards and drawers before ordering repeat prescriptions," he explained.
In November the trust is to launch the next phase of its campaign to reduce waste, joining forces with GP surgeries, other health professionals and pharmacists to raise awareness of the problem.
Mr Small added: "One of the strong messages we would like to get across is that if you are going into hospital take your medicines with you. So many patients don't do this and so they have to have a second prescription for the same medicines issued and the first batch is wasted.
"It is essential that we do everything we can to reduce the amount of wasted medicine, which costs the health service so much. It is literally costing the NHS a fortune."
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Sunday 27 May 2012
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