The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7219 p523
12 October 2002

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Letters to the Editor

Patient packs

Scrap patient packs forthwith

From Mr S. F. Courtney, MRPharmS

As a frequent visitor to a local zoo, I notice that every cage and enclosure carries a notice exhorting us not to buy over-packaged goods and gives some amazing figures on the global impact of over-packaging. Most of the environmental agencies make similar statements and the subject was raised at some length in the recent earth summit in South Africa.

I suggest that pharmacy, as a responsible profession, should take a lead and make the gesture of scrapping patient packs forthwith. The savings of paper, cardboard, metal foil, labels and the necessity to use much larger bags would be considerable.

All tablets, with a few exceptions, should be supplied in containers of 100, 500 or 1,000 and the patient should be given the exact quantity that the prescriber orders. No more "shall we give 28 or 30?", no more "is it a calender pack or not?". Smaller bottles, smaller bags, fewer labels, no more snipping and no more boxes of jagged odds and ends and, above all, continuity of brand for the patient.

As a spin-off from this initiative all the scissors made redundant could be collected and given to third world countries where I am sure they would be a boon.

Stuart Courtney
Wickham, Hampshire

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