Moulsham Lodge Surgery
Help NHS Mid Essex to save £5 million a year by cutting out medicine waste.
It is estimated that each year, £5 million could be saved in mid Essex by reducing wasted medicines from people ordering medicines unnecessarily.
Unused prescription medicines cost NHS Mid Essex £5 million every year, that could pay for:
· 150 more community nurses
· 1,000 more hip replacements
· 700 more heart by-pass operations
· 7,000 more cataract operations
· 900 more knee replacements
Did you know that:
· Unused medicines cannot be recycled
· Even if you never open them, once medicines have left the pharmacy or dispensary they cannot be recycled or used by anyone else.
· Please bring your unused medicines to the pharmacy or dispensary for safe disposal.
Unused medicines are a safety risk
· Return out of date medicines to pharmacy for safe disposal.
· If your medicines change - return your old medicines to the pharmacy for safe disposal to avoid mixing them up with your new medicines.
· Don't stockpile medication - it is a safety risk for children and others who might take them.
· Store medicines in an appropriate place out of reach of children.
What you can do to help
Let your GP or Pharmacist know if you've stopped taking any of your medicines
· Check what medicines you still have at home before re-ordering
· Discuss your medication with your Pharmacist or GP on a regular basis
· Think carefully before ticking all the boxes on your repeat prescription forms and only tick those you really need
· If you don't need the medicine now - don't order it! If you need the medicine in the future you can still request it
· If you need to go into hospital, please take all your prescription medicines with you
What is a wasted medicine?
Any medicine that is not taken correctly, in order to achieve the intended therapeutic outcome, could be described as wasted.This includes medicine that isn’t taken at all, but it could also mean items that are taken infrequently or at irregular intervals.
Is wasted medicine a big problem?
Upto half of patients do not take their prescribed medicines to best effect. 700 million prescription items are dispensed in primary care in England each year, at a cost of approximately £8 billion. The estimated £100 millionper year in wasted medicines returned to pharmacies for safe disposal is generally seen as ‘the tip of the iceberg’.
Also, the cost of the wasted medicines themselves is only part of the overall cost of the problem. Where medicines are not taken, patients don’t get the benefits - this results not only in wasted medicines but also in poor health outcomes, wasted time for health professionals, and unnecessary health, social and environmental costs.
What causes medicines to be wasted?
There are various reasons for wastage: Patients stop taking their medicines because they suffer side effects; their doctor changes their treatment or the dose; or simply because they don’t want to take them any longer. Half of all returns are unopened packs. This shows that many patients are ordering and receiving medicines that they do not even begin to take.
Who is responsible for medicines waste - the prescriber or the patient?
Both.
Waste can be caused by inefficient prescribing systems or more rarely inappropriate prescribing. Waste is caused by patients ‘stock-piling’ their medicines or ordering items that they are no longer taking. Waste is also caused by a failure to take prescribed medicines as directed by the GP or hospital consultant. Good medicines management and reduced wastage comes about through partnership and shared decision-making between patients and health professionals.
What is NHS Mid Essex doing to stop medicines waste?
NHS Mid Essex has introduced various initiatives to cut the waste.
For example we now contract our community pharmacies to provide:
· Medicines Use Review service – this supports patients with their medicine-taking. Pharmacists can target patients who they suspect may have problems and other health professionals can also signpost or refer to this service Patients can also ask for this service themselves.
· The Repeatable Dispensing (‘batch prescribing’) service enables management of repeat prescriptions by community pharmacist. They are obliged to satisfy themselves that each medicine is required whenever medicines are dispensed. This presents an ideal opportunity to identify and address problems that lead to waste.
We are also looking at other ideas linked to the way medicines are prescribed, for example, synchronising quantities of medicines on a prescription so that all items are prescribed in equal/matching quantities.