Wasted Medicines

AS THE representative body of the pharmaceutical industry, we are probably the last people you would expect to welcome NHS Lothian’s campaign to try to cut the amount of wasted medicines, but we do.

As you reported (June 13), the campaign has highlighted the fact that an estimated GBP3m is spent every year on unused medicines in Lothian alone, money, the board points out, that could have funded 460 hip replacements or 260 heart bypass operations.

Unused medicines expiring in a cupboard in a patient’s home still have to be paid for, and every pound lost here is one that cannot be spent elsewhere in the NHS.

The Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry wants every patient in Scotland to have access to the best medicine they can be prescribed. Equally, we believe that medicines patients don’t need should stay on the pharmacist’s shelf waiting for the person who does need them.

With the government instructing NHS boards to lose GBP20m a year from their medicines budgets, it’s important that the available funds go to those who need them.

Andrew Powrie-Smith, Director, ABPI Scotland, Crichton House, 4 Crichton’s Close, Canongate, Edinburgh.

Originally published by Newsquest Media Group.

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