Unused prescription medication

I’m sure you’re right. Easy come, easy go. I’m painfully aware of how much my medication costs and waste nothing. A pill dropped under the bed is located and used. I hate waste - all the more so when it involves public money. I have no doubt that many couldn’t care less - hence what the OP witnessed.

Caramme

Marydoll

Caramme, I am on twenty medications (not an exaggeration), impossible to sync, no matter how hard the pharmacist tries.
Some are on an acute list or are CDs and can only be dispensed after regular blood tests.
There is no way I can stockpile. It is compounded by packs of different sizes: 28 or 30 pills in a pack and injections being delivered, eight at a time, or more recentgly in batches of two or four, due to shortages.
It's blooming hard work, keeping up with it all.

Primrose, you state that often GPs prescribe drugs, patients decide they don’t want to take them, but instead of owning up to the GP they keep ordering them.
Do you have a medical background? Or is your statement purely anecdotal?

Marydoll: I wasn’t implying criticism of anyone else or suggesting you ‘do it my way’. Nowhere did I suggest stockpiling, so not sure why you are criticising me for that. I was simply pointing out how helpful my GP surgery is compared to the way my mother’s surgery operated.
I can see that your situation is different to mine, and clearly difficult to manage, which I sympathise with, but does that mean I cannot comment on my own experience, which is all I have done?

Oh dear! I think you may have got the wrong end of the stick! I empathised with your frustration.

Germanshepherdsmum

I’m sure you’re right. Easy come, easy go. I’m painfully aware of how much my medication costs and waste nothing. A pill dropped under the bed is located and used. I hate waste - all the more so when it involves public money. I have no doubt that many couldn’t care less - hence what the OP witnessed.

I totally agree. But as described above, it is quite common to get prescriptions 'served', take the drugs and not take them. Especially in the elderly. And they will swear bling they are taking them.

The pill under the bed cooker is a major incident for me, because the amount I use of some of them is monitored.
That's the way it should be.
People who intentionally waste medicine are IMO defrauding the NHS.
However, I have no idea what the solution is.

Another side of the coin is that medication is prescribed only to find that it is unsuitable for the patient.
This has happened to me on a fair number of occasions, and although not my fault, I get annoyed that what remains must be disposed of.

Regular reviews will be proof of whether or not medication is being taken fp. Does your GP husband not agree? In all the years I have taken medication - practically my entire life - I have been monitored and would never have got away with not taking my medication or stockpiling. It’s called a duty of care on the part of the dispensing doctor.

If regular, repeat medication isn't being taken, it would surely, eventually impact on a patients health.

I was talking to my dentist about it today. One of my reguar RA drugs has been suspended, for medical reasons and it has seriously impacted on my health.
Repeats are for diagnosed conditions, so failing to take them must have consequences.

Germanshepherdsmum

Regular reviews will be proof of whether or not medication is being taken fp. Does your GP husband not agree? In all the years I have taken medication - practically my entire life - I have been monitored and would never have got away with not taking my medication or stockpiling. It’s called a duty of care on the part of the dispensing doctor.

Yes- but if the patient tells the GP that they are taking their meds- even if results don't seem to indicate that the do- do you think the GP has the right to go and investigate patient's house or send police to do so?

Fleurpepper

Germanshepherdsmum

Regular reviews will be proof of whether or not medication is being taken fp. Does your GP husband not agree? In all the years I have taken medication - practically my entire life - I have been monitored and would never have got away with not taking my medication or stockpiling. It’s called a duty of care on the part of the dispensing doctor.

Yes- but if the patient tells the GP that they are taking their meds- even if results don't seem to indicate that the do- do you think the GP has the right to go and investigate patient's house or send police to do so?

Did anybody suggest they should?

My mother is guilty of not taking meds prescribed for her . They’re antihistamine type drugs which she says aren’t working . I’ve told her GP but he still keeps prescribing them.
Her adcal is piling up as she hates taking them . It drives me nuts as it’s so wasteful

Multiple drugs and boxes of phials of injectable morphine were being delivered up to half an hour before DH died. My friend said the same phials were counted out meticulously when her Mum was ill and actually collected when no longer needed. However, that was pre-Covid and no-one would take mine away, even the Pharmacy said to hang onto them. Six months later I managed to drop off a massive bag of unused meds, most of which were unopened. Such a waste.

Foxygloves

Fleurpepper

Germanshepherdsmum

Regular reviews will be proof of whether or not medication is being taken fp. Does your GP husband not agree? In all the years I have taken medication - practically my entire life - I have been monitored and would never have got away with not taking my medication or stockpiling. It’s called a duty of care on the part of the dispensing doctor.

Yes- but if the patient tells the GP that they are taking their meds- even if results don't seem to indicate that the do- do you think the GP has the right to go and investigate patient's house or send police to do so?

Did anybody suggest they should?

Yes, in a way. As they said GP is responsible for the waste. If patient says they are taking their medicines, the doctor can gently try and discuss if results weem to indicate their are not. But if the patient is adamant that they are taking them- what is the GP to do?

Tenko

My mother is guilty of not taking meds prescribed for her . They’re antihistamine type drugs which she says aren’t working . I’ve told her GP but he still keeps prescribing them.
Her adcal is piling up as she hates taking them . It drives me nuts as it’s so wasteful

Put them in a bag and take them to surgey and ask for them to be given to GP with name of patient- or ask to see GP.

Fleurpepper

Germanshepherdsmum

Regular reviews will be proof of whether or not medication is being taken fp. Does your GP husband not agree? In all the years I have taken medication - practically my entire life - I have been monitored and would never have got away with not taking my medication or stockpiling. It’s called a duty of care on the part of the dispensing doctor.

Yes- but if the patient tells the GP that they are taking their meds- even if results don't seem to indicate that the do- do you think the GP has the right to go and investigate patient's house or send police to do so?

Any GP worth their salt would realise something doesn't add up and pursue the matter, if results indicate that the patient is not responding to treatment.

I assume you were being flippant about calling the police fp.

Not at all flippant. If the patient is adamant and swears they are taking the medicines, the GP would not have any way whatsoever to either say the patient is lying, or investigate themselves. So what else could s/he do?

many patients can hardly get any medical attention at all, let alone monitoring.
a neighbour with chronic complex conditions was promised a bone scan, needed for condition and medication taken, last oct by rheumatologist.
never heard anything since.
GP have not responded until i managed to get one to admit that she didn't know if GP or hosp were to request it.
this happens with everything; delay and buck passing.
blood test should have been done 2 months ago. we are told they are coming.
eventually a receptionist said the patient only had to pick up the form and go to the hosp.
for a bed-bound patient.
i can't imagine how people who cannot advocate for themselves, or have someone to do so, cope.

Fleurpepper

Not at all flippant. If the patient is adamant and swears they are taking the medicines, the GP would not have any way whatsoever to either say the patient is lying, or investigate themselves. So what else could s/he do?

I meant the part about calling the police, fp!

If it was my forthright GP, or any other GP in the practice, they would not let it go, I can assure you.

I recall being challenged asked by my endocrinologist if I was actually taking my Vit D supplements, as my levels weren't registering at all. It turned out, I couldn't retain it. I was referred to a bone mineral specialist to investigate the reason. Because someone persisted in checking it out..

Agreed, it’s an appalling waste of money. A friend of ours used to have masses of different prescription drugs stockpiled in his bathroom - I once counted over 60 items, of maybe 6 different preparations. He evidently kept taking repeat prescriptions that he simply didn’t need.

After he died a huge amount of stuff had to be binned.
He was actually very well off but notoriously mean with money, so I’m sure that if he’d had to pay even £2 or £3 per item he’d never have taken things he didn’t need.

I once read that just the admin for each prescription - besides the cost of the drug - costs the NHS at least £7.
I do think that better off pensioners should have to pay something for their prescriptions - I say this as an oldie myself. They do in plenty of other countries, inc. according to a Swedish friend in Sweden - popularly supposed to be a socialist Utopia.

I’ve often wondered if the price of the meds could be added to the label? I think some people don’t have a clue as to the cost of their meds and that the prescription price they pay (I know it’s free for many) actually covers it.

I was prescribed HRT patches, when I got home and read the leaflet inside the pack I realised that I didn’t want to use them. I tried to return them to our GP dispensary the following day but they refused to take them back. I can understand that medication could have been stored incorrectly, but overnight?

Marydoll

Fleurpepper

Not at all flippant. If the patient is adamant and swears they are taking the medicines, the GP would not have any way whatsoever to either say the patient is lying, or investigate themselves. So what else could s/he do?

I meant the part about calling the police, fp!

If it was my forthright GP, or any other GP in the practice, they would not let it go, I can assure you.

I recall being challenged asked by my endocrinologist if I was actually taking my Vit D supplements, as my levels weren't registering at all. It turned out, I couldn't retain it. I was referred to a bone mineral specialist to investigate the reason. Because someone persisted in checking it out..

A GP can ask, and ask some more- but no more than that. Can you imagine the ACs, or Press, being told about GP calling a patient a liar, and asking to search their house or flat? Just not possible.

So if you insist that should be done- than it would have to be by Police.

I have annual blood tests and other reviews, without which I couldn’t get repeat prescriptions. What does your GP husband say about that fp?

YorkLady

Primrose53 I’m amazed that the stoma nurse was unaware of charities who will be happy to take donations of unused stoma equipment. Some, (Jacobs Well) would even collect them.
They are sent to poorer countries who have to pay for them. It’s a shame that we can’t reuse unopened medication.

Often bags are made to measure and cut to size like Mum’s were so bags are of no use to other people. If your stoma is, say, shaped like an oval and it was given to a person with a round stoma then imagine the mess that would cause!

We used all Mum’s blue disposal bags for doggie poo bags and the adhesive sprays will no doubt come in handy but the actual colostomy bags are of no use to anybody as the Stoma Nurse told me. We only had maybe a month’s supply but as I said some people have thousands of £ worth.

Fleurpepper

Marydoll

Fleurpepper

Not at all flippant. If the patient is adamant and swears they are taking the medicines, the GP would not have any way whatsoever to either say the patient is lying, or investigate themselves. So what else could s/he do?

I meant the part about calling the police, fp!

If it was my forthright GP, or any other GP in the practice, they would not let it go, I can assure you.

I recall being challenged asked by my endocrinologist if I was actually taking my Vit D supplements, as my levels weren't registering at all. It turned out, I couldn't retain it. I was referred to a bone mineral specialist to investigate the reason. Because someone persisted in checking it out..

A GP can ask, and ask some more- but no more than that. Can you imagine the ACs, or Press, being told about GP calling a patient a liar, and asking to search their house or flat? Just not possible.

So if you insist that should be done- than it would have to be by Police.

fp, You are twisting what I said. I did not at any point say that the police should be involved, nor did I say that a GP nor clinician should/would call a patient a liar. Please give clinicians some credit.
I'm sure your GP husband would confirm this.

It's all getting a bit ridiculous now.

Louella12

When we went into my mother's home after her death we discovered enough boxes of drugs to fill a small pharmacy. My father would also just throw his bluster pack in the bin when it arrived. The refuse men bought this to our attention. Neither had dementia and we just assumed they were talking their medication.

For anyone to think that drugs are religiously taken as and when they're supposed to doesn't know many old people!

Quite! My husband has spent over 30 years in the homes of older people. Some people actually delight in showing him their stashes of medication. He has even been offered medication on occasions!! Geriatric drug dealers 🤣

I worked with older people for many years and, as others have said, they tell the GP they take the medication but they don’t and the GP keeps prescribing it.

nandad

I was prescribed HRT patches, when I got home and read the leaflet inside the pack I realised that I didn’t want to use them. I tried to return them to our GP dispensary the following day but they refused to take them back. I can understand that medication could have been stored incorrectly, but overnight?

You cannot return drugs for reuse once you have left the building actually. My friend has just retired as a dispenser and we discussed this and she said it’s because you could have left them in direct sunlight or damp conditions or failed to refrigerate them if that was the instruction.