Doctors urged to cut drug waste
pharmafile | July 22, 2013 | News story | Sales and Marketing | GPs, NHS, RPS, doctors, prescribing
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) has called on doctors to change the way they prescribe in a bid to cut the hundreds of millions of pounds worth of NHS drugs which are wasted each year in the UK.
Ash Soni, vice-chair of the RPS’s English pharmacy board, believes doctors should favour regular repeat prescriptions over prescribing large amounts of drugs over long periods.
He told the BBC that patients should also be more sensible in their attitude to what they need.
“Have a better discussion with your doctor about your medicines,” he says. “We can do something about when patients simply haven’t taken the drugs and they’ve continued to be prescribed, or they’re just not appropriate.”
Every year £300 million of medicines are wasted and between a third and half of patients do not take their medicines as recommended – and over 70% of admissions to hospital for adverse drug reactions are avoidable, the RPS says.
Research from the organisation suggests that reducing medicines waste would need to be driven by helping patients to understand their medicines better – and it wants more tailored, personal advice to be provided to patients to address the existing lack of knowledge.
In England alone more than 15 million people have a long-term health problem such as asthma, heart disease or diabetes – and this number is set to increase as the population ages.
Medicine Waste UK has an ‘Only order what you need’ campaign running at present, part of social media activity by the organisation – which is supported by the NHS in England, Scotland and Wales.
A report by the Department of Health in December estimated that £110 million worth of medicine each year was returned to pharmacies, £90 million of unused prescriptions were stored in homes and £50 million of medicines are disposed of by care homes.
Last year, Pfizer issued a free online guide for health professionals on the safe disposal of medicines, thought to be the first of its kind.
Reduction of costs is a hot topic – with the government last month showing its hand in the drug pricing debate by asking for a 20% price cut on some drugs from next year.
The UK’s Department of Health has launched a five-week consultation, which is seeking views on a price cut on drug prices of between 10% and 20%, “to ensure the NHS is getting good value for money”.
Adam Hill
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