Prescription Drugs

(asked on 23rd July 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the waste of prescription medicine.


Answered by
Steve Brine Portrait
Steve Brine
This question was answered on 6th September 2018

The Department commissioned the York Health Economics Consortium and the School of Pharmacy at the University of London to carry out research to determine the scale, causes and costs of waste medicines in England. The report, ‘Evaluation of the Scale, Causes and Costs of Waste Medicines’, was published on 23 November 2010. This found that the gross cost of unused prescription medicines in primary and community care in the NHS in England in 2009 was £300 million a year and that up to £150 million of this was avoidable. The report is available at the following link:

http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1350234/

A number of initiatives have been taken, which NHS England expects will directly impact on medicines wastage. This includes the deployment of clinical pharmacists in general practice and in care homes to undertake medicines reviews. In addition, work to address problematic polypharmacy and ensure appropriate de-prescribing of medicines and addressing variation through the use of RightCare principles is also expected to contribute to a reduction in medicines waste.

NHS England is also leading on the Medicines Value Programme, the aim being to improve value in terms of improving patient outcomes while maintaining an affordable medicines bill.

While recognising the importance of reducing medicines wastage from a value for money perspective, the key to securing a reduction in medicines wastage is implementation of the principles of medicines optimisation, ensuring that each patient receives the right medicine, at the right dosage, at the right time.

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