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[Bobbisox1]

No wonder our NHS is in trouble and this is just one instance



I am a GP. This medication was left behind by a UK NHS patient who moved away. It was returned by a relative.

It includes nearly £1000 of diabetic items, £100 of nasal sprays and much more. All unused. All wasted.

The cost of this pile would pay for an NHS nurse for almost one MONTH.

The NHS cannot survive this abuse. But this keeps happening OFTEN.

If you do not want to take some of your meds, please tell your General Practice.

If you are receiving an excess, please tell your Practice.

Please do not waste medication.

(If you are uncertain about a medication, seek advice. This post is advice to adults only. The patient was not at my practice.)


https://ibb.co/hVfQyTq

[woofgang]

Practices have a duty to review medications often and ensure they are being used properly...not just dish them out and allow them to mount up.

[Sqad]

Good advice.........it is because medications are free for 80% of the population that one takes them for granted.
If one had to pay then medications would be treated with respect.

[Bobbisox1]

Could it perhaps be that this person has been diagnosed with Diabetes and hasn't bothered about it? That the scripts kept on coming, shocking to say the least !

[Vagus]

For some maybe.
There are two meds’ I take regularly at my gps suggestion which I could get on prescription but I buy them over the counter.
Our practice allows you to get two months of repeat prescriptions each time, and we get a regular med review.
I think perhaps with the pandemic and brexit some folk have been worried and stockpiled.
And some people are just a bit daft.

[sanmac]

The GP I go to has for years now only given me enough pills etc. to last me for three months with no refills. Towards the end of the three month period I had to go and see him with lab results from blood-work he had ordered and random BP readings that I had taken over that time period. Now, he phones me and discusses the need for a new prescription...There's no way that any of his patients could amass that much of a horde of stuff.

[ToraToraTora]

TBH, I'd start looking at the endemic thievery going on rather than a few steam tugs in peoples cupboards.

[cashier]

I wouldn't be able to have that much. I get a prescription for two months of BP tablets. Haven't had a review for years or a BP test. They need to look at all the wastage that happens in hospitals before they start blaming the public.

[dave50]

Anything that is free, it will be abused. People put rights above responsibility. Time everyone was charged for meds, might make people think twice about demanding stuff and waste.

[bobbie22]

I take lots of tablets etc. I have several things wrong but my surgery only allows one months supply. If I am over maybe on one or two items, I always tell them when I order. I was appalled to see the picture of all the wasted medication, and I understand that it will all have to be thrown out.

[woofgang]

yes, once drugs and other items have left a pharmacy and been handed to a patient, they cannot be restocked and re issued, but, as I said, its the surgery's responsibility to do medication reviews and keep a check on what patients are doing with their meds.

[vulcan42]

This wastage works both ways. I know a family of four who over the years have amassed seven or eight pairs of differing size metal crutch's. They have tried to return them to their local clinic and hospitals, nobody will accept them.

[Bobbisox1]

You're right Vulcan, I recall when my grandson was born at 24weeks ,the health visitor insisted my daughter put in for ' attendance allowance' my daughter and son-in-law law have good jobs and when it came a time my grandson had caught up chronologically many phone calls to the powers that be literally begging for the payment to cease , it fell on deaf ears, they banked the money to pay it back , yet they couldn't !!!