Local health chiefs have estimated that an incredible £1million is lost each year across the Vale of York through medicines waste alone.

In a bid to combat this, NHS Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has launched a new campaign to raise awareness of the cost and pressures waste medicines has on the local health economy.

The campaign calls upon local patients to:

• only order what they need;
• tell their GP, practice or pharmacy if they no longer need an item;
• if someone orders prescriptions on their behalf to tell them what you need;
• check the bag before leaving the pharmacy and hand back items that are not needed;
• only, if it is really necessary, request prescriptions for medications to treat minor ailments

Dr Shaun O’Connell, a local GP and the Clinical Lead for Prescribing at the CCG, said: “It is essential that we get the very best value from the money we are allocated to spend on healthcare for the local population.

“Unwanted medicine in the home represents a huge amount of waste and it is in everyone’s hands to protect our precious resources.

“It is estimated that medicines that are unused or surplus to requirements currently cost the NHS nationally around £300 million a year and it is thought that half of this waste is preventable, equating to £1 million for the Vale of York – money that could be used to benefit other areas of health and wellbeing. With a few simple considerations, patients could help save the NHS millions each year.”

The £1million which is currently being lost locally on waste medicines could be spent on:

• 1,176 days of care in an Intensive Treatment Unit (ITU) for critically ill patients, or
• 5,988 outpatient appointments with a consultant, or
• 1,960 days of treatment in a Special Baby Care Unit for seriously ill babies, or
• 22,222 GP appointments, or
• 333,000 blood tests, or
• 52,631 days of medication for people with Alzheimer’s Disease, or
• 141 Coronary Artery Bypass Graft operations, or
• 23 Community Nurses, or
• 18,181 hearing tests, or
• 666,500 inhalers for asthmatics, or
• 23 Midwives

Dr O’Connell added: “We want patients on repeat prescriptions to think about what they are ordering and only ask for what they need and are running out of.

“Health staff that are involved in prescribing, dispensing or reviewing medicines also have a responsibility to make sure that patients are involved in making decisions about their treatment and that medicines are always taken as recommended.

“The money wasted on unused, over-ordered medicines could fund a lot of additional care for the people in our community who really need it.

Another reason that patients should only order what they need is the safety aspect. It is not safe to stockpile medicines and we need to make sure people are taking the appropriate medicine, at the right dose and in the right quantity.

In addition to medicines that are wasted, each year is costs the Vale of York more than £500,000 to prescribe paracetamol. It costs the NHS around four times more to provide paracetamol on prescription compared to the cost for the public to buy themselves from a shop or pharmacy.

The same can be said for prescriptions for medicines to treat many minor ailments which also cost the NHS four times more that it does for patients to buy themselves in a pharmacy or supermarket.

Dr O’Connell added: “We are asking patients and the public to please only request a prescription for medicines to treat minor ailments if you really, really have to.

“This is our NHS, so let’s take care of it, together.”

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