The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7252 p782
7 June 2003

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Southend on Sea PCT (more)

Southend pharmacy bags target waste

Community pharmacies in Southend, Essex, are using carrier bags to give patients receiving repeat prescriptions the message not to order more medicines than they need.

Bow Sotire, medicines management service project facilitator for Southend Primary Care Trust, told The Journal that he has distributed 43,000 preprinted carrier bags to pharmacies in the area. Each carries a message on the front that £2m worth of unwanted or unused prescription drugs are destroyed in Southend each year. This money would pay for 143 heart operations, 250 hip operations or 2,000 cataract operations, it says. Patients who are on repeat prescriptions will be given their medicines in one of the bags if they visit a pharmacy during June. They are urged not to order more than one month's supply at a time.

The bags are being supported by local advertising, posters in pharmacies and leaflets explaining why pharmacies cannot re-use medicines that are returned to them.