By Marjory Inglis, health reporter

Patients being admitted to hospitals in Tayside are being asked to take in their own medicines with them, reducing waits for drugs from hospital pharmacies.

Now hospital staff want patients to continue taking their GP-prescribed medicines while in hospital, a change that is expected to free up beds more quickly and get patients home from hospital sooner.

At the moment patients can experience delays in admission while staff register details of regular drug requirements and order them from the pharmacy. There can also be delays of several hours after a consultant decides a patient is fit to be discharged but the queue for the pharmacy means they have to wait for take-home drugs.

Lockable bedside cabinets where patients can store their own medicines safely have now been introduced on the wards at Dundee’s Ninewells Hospital, Perth Royal Infirmary, Stracathro Hospital by Brechin and at St Margaret’s Hospital in Auchterarder. The aim is that eventually every ward in the hospitals will allow patients to continue taking their previously prescribed drugs during periods of admission.

Yesterday pharmacist Gordon Thomson, based in Dundee’s Ninewells Hospital, explained that historically there was a divide between the prescribing systems of hospital care and care in the community. But it was clear there was a will to break down that artificial divide for the benefit of patients.

“We are trying to take a lot of delays out of the system by making more medicines available at the bedside.”

Only about 30% of people coming in to Ninewells are bringing their own medicines with them and hospital staff are looking at ways of boosting those figures. Ambulance staff are being asked to gather up any drugs in patients’ homes when they pick up people for transfer to hospital.

Last night Mark Lumsden, a patient in ward five at Ninewells, explained that the system of encouraging patients to bring their own medication into hospital was also helping him maintain a measure of control over chronic disease.

Mr Lumsden was admitted to Ninewells in January when he was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, an inflammatory bowel condition that will require daily drug treatment for the rest of his life.

He was readmitted last week to be treated for an abscess that is a complication of his chronic condition. He continued to need his regular medication.

Mr Lumsden said it seemed “practical” that he should continue to use his own medication in hospital, but that was also an important factor in maintaining the routines he has developed to help control his condition. If his daily medication was doled out by a nurse in hospital, he would be temporarily giving up his control of the disease, something he would have to regain once he was discharged from hospital.

Mr Thomson pointed out that while hospital staff were keen to encourage more people to bring their own medication into hospital, anyone admitted without their routine drugs would be supplied with what they needed.