Would you re-use medicines returned to the NHS?

The chain of custody has been broken and there’s no guarantee that the NHS is even buying back the same medication or that it hasn’t been tampered with in some way. Sounds like an ideal opportunity for crooks, terrorists and psychopaths to do mischief.

By way of comparison owners of self catering holiday accommodation are recommended if not required to throw away any food left behind if the seals have been broken. To re-issue returned medication sounds like a non-starter to me.

You can encourage your GP’s Surgery to register so that unused in-date drugs can be used by a charity. There are other charities to donate to too. This is better than getting your pharmacy to dispose of them. (You are not supposed to flush them down the loo, They are considered to be Hazardous Waste.)

“This is taken from https://gov.uk/

Unused drugs and medicines
If medicines are flushed down the toilet, traces of them can end up in water courses like rivers or the sea.
You can take any out-of-date or unwanted medicines to your local pharmacy, who will dispose of them safely. You can also donate certain, in-date medicines to Inter Care, a charity that uses them in developing countries. The link below shows you medicines that Inter Care accepts.
Inter Care prefers to receive medicines through GPs who are registered to donate with them, so check with your GP first. If they aren’t registered, you can encourage them to do so, or post accepted medicines directly to Inter Care. For details on both of these options, see ‘How to donate medicines to Inter Care’.
What medicines can and can’t be donated: Inter CareOpens new window
How to donate medicines to Inter CareOpens new window”

You will need to visit the government website to use the links.

I would be too worried the re-issued pills weren’t what they said they were. Mix ups could be serious and even with the strictest checks not every individual pill could be tested to make sure it was as described and that would worry me.

A couple of points –

Many drugs now are individually sealed in strips – so I cannot see why such items cannot be re-issued if in date – particularly as some of them are VERY expensive (like £2000 a month).

I am also a person who will use ‘old’ tablets – You see I remember the time before the NHS when medicines were NOT free and were often too expensive to afford.

I do hate to point out that attitudes learned as a young person will very often stay with you – irrespective of changes afterwards.

I think it would be worth finding out how many different drugs people are taking. As a young person I took very few – usually antibiotics (though not very often) or creams for irritations. However I have now met elderly people who take an enormous number of different ones on repeat prescription. These are the people who were told that the NHS would look after them for life and who are now living to be 100+. These people are getting a poor deal – they may be getting the prescriptions handed out but they are not getting the other care which might actually save a lot of the use and waste of these drugs.

Years ago I threw away iron tablets because they made me feel so sick. The info didn’t tell me and it wasn’t until much later that I met someone who said that often happened and that you should take them with or after food.

I think that we should be warned more that pills often cause other problems – and have a better idea of the cost of our drugs.

It is not true as in the BBC link above that drugs have to be incinerated. I have seen other places that they can be donated to. http://www.myzerowaste.com has some listed.

Are we paying enough for our drugs? It is politics which keeps a lot of these charges low.

I do wonder when I see a packet of paracetamol in the supermarket for 49p how much it costs if it comes via prescription. (Not the cost of the prescription to the patient which is sometimes charged for and sometimes free at point of service. How much does the pharmacy charge for that packet of paracetamol?)

You can see how the situation is not as simple as it might seem at the outset. It would be better to be available to AVOID more of the waste. It has to be better with most surgeries only allowing a month’s prescription now at a time.

You can also see my frustration at trying to deal with three different counties, miles and miles apart with different hospital systems to get my head around. Where is the template?

And I’m supposed to be able to hold down a job and pay my taxes and support myself until I am allowed to retire. I am just one person yelling out!

If a person is hoarding drugs they either do not require them in the first instance (over prescribed) or they are not following the regime laid down by their health professional. In both case this could compromise their health. This may also be a waste of NHS resources which may not be so extensive if the person was obliged to pay the market price. Freebies always encourage waste and abuse and dilutes essential resources that would better benefit those who are seriously ill.

It isn’t necessarily hoarding though is it? It is just poor management all round. You don’t want the wrong ones and then there is the difficulty of getting rid of them safely and without waste of resources and guilt.

Umm……

I’m well past the “three score years and ten” age and don’t normally take pills or medication – I seem fairly robust.

About 10 years ago I went to the doctors for some migraine pills – He prescribed “Ibuprofen” in an enormous pack of 96 pills for free – I still have 86 all in their airtight wrappings left – used two a couple of days ago Still worked well.

Just spent a weekend sorting out pills again.

Several of them have a dosage which depends on how serious a problem is: ie amount of pain and amount of skin irritation.

It is therefore difficult although these are on a repeat prescription to gauge the number which will be used each month. So you could find that you need to order twice in a month. This can caquse problems if you have a Doctor’s practice with LIttle Britain tendencies: Computer says ‘No’. Unfortunately instead of scaling down and being more selective it is far easier to just order everything each time. More approachability/flexibility would be useful.

Oh and just found another problem where one tablet three times a day is noted as 28 tablets. I think this was a change from one tablet a day to three. You would have thought that there should be software to eliminate this problem so that the person entering the info would have to deliberately override if there was something different being prescribed eg just 10 tablets. I tend to be with parents at weekends so unable to do anything (needs to be in earshot) and also action will need to be confirmed more than once. The Surgery and Surgery’s closest pharmacy are also closed at the weekend. The stock of this drug is therefore out of sync with the rest on the repeat prescription.

Had difficulty ordering pills for parent the other day. Tried to do it at the surgery with the prescription list as was there on a weekday. Quite short on one of the pills so tried to order all for delivery by pharmacist. Wasn’t allowed to. A case of “Computer says No”. Result: Parent didn’t order and rationed said pill in short supply. Well I guess that’s a way of saving money. Good job it was only the indigestion pill.

Why aren’t people being told to check the packs that they receive from the pharmacist? We had one drug where the strength being prescribed was doubled but I don’t think that two packs of the drug were delivered. This has happened before when the extra tablets definitely weren’t – and also when a reduced strength was supposed to be being prescribed – and the same strength turned up – causing grief.

Who checks whether the pharmacy asks for all on your prescription or just the few items that you requested when you have your repeat prescription lodged with a pharmacy?

Had a great laugh last year when listening to BBC satire Polyoaks. The pharmacist had lost the plot. He was fed up with all the long and difficult trade names for exactly the same drug. So he decided to re-name them. I think he decided that all anti-depressants should be called Derek…

I would desperately like to hear that episode again.

I have had prescriptions a number of times when the packet showed clear signs of being relabelled, which is illegal. I have also worked at a chemist shop where the practice was common!
This lines the pharmacists pocket in a big way as he will get paid twice!
Unless this common practice is controlled in some way there is know way that unused prescriptions can be recycled.

Who checks that the pharmacy has only requested the two things that you have ordered of your repeat prescription of five?

After another “Computer says No” session with GPs surgery – with an Easter holiday, a pharmacy that is only open weekdays that delivers which takes several days more, and a carer needing to help with ordering or any other collection I suggest that pills come in standard 30 packs not 28.

It would be easier for the GP’s surgery who are refusing if something has already been ordered that month without taking into account the amount of time it takes for the prescription to be written, filled and delivered to make the right decision.

Perhaps it would be of benefit to them as well to follow up on patients as they once did for a medication review.

Most of the arguments against reuse concern medicines from people’s own homes, where storage can be less than ideal, however in nursing homes or prisons, for example they are stored correctly and unopened as in for example, morphine ampules with 3 years expiry are wasted without use, many drugs never see the patient or boxes are unopened, due to change in prescribed medication or ordered in case, it is a scandal to see these entirely usable drugs thrown away