By Marjory Inglis, medical reporter

A “HOUSE clearance” after the death of a Tayside patient collected a hoard of £1000 worth of unused prescription medicines.

The haul revealed that the patient had been ordering repeat prescriptions for one particular medicine every month for four years without ever taking a tablet. There were many other drugs left unopened in the original packaging.

That trunk full of wasted medicines was used to highlight a serious problem at the launch of a campaign yesterday to reduce medicine wastage. It may appear shocking but a leading Tayside pharmacist said the wastage was not unique.

“Ask any pharmacy in Tayside and they will tell you the same sort of story,” David Gill, head of pharmacy at Angus Community Health Partnership, told the campaign launch in Ashludie Pharmacy at Monifieth Health Centre.

NHS Tayside spends £100 million a year on drugs but has no real idea how much goes unused. The health authority does measure “the tip of the iceberg”, that is around £1.2 million of unused drugs returned every year for destruction under controlled conditions by a commercial company, a cost paid by NHS Tayside.

“We can only measure what we get back,” he said. “A lot more goes down the toilet or to landfill.”

Each year in Tayside over 18,000kg of prescribed medicines, the equivalent of 30 small cars, are destroyed after bring returned unused.

Now the NHS is trying to get patients to realise the extent of the waste—all public money that can’t be spent on saving lives and improving patient services.

Community health partnerships in Angus, Dundee and Perth are behind the campaign to reduce the estimated £1.2 million worth of prescribed medicines unused by patients that are returned to pharmacies to be destroyed each year.

Informal disposal poses a big risk to others. “This trunk full of unused medicines was returned,” said Mr Gill. “The scary thing is it could have gone in to landfill and kids could have got their hands on them.”

He said people should not re-order drugs they do not intend to take, nor “stockpile” them for the future.

Frances Rooney, head of pharmacy at Perth and Kinross CHP, said in her area 200 pain killers were found “encased in ice” in a domestic freezer. The patient was storing them “just in case” they were needed.

“Many people will have a weekly shopping list of items they buy regularly,” said Mr Gill. “If there is still milk in the fridge you would not buy more just because it is on the list, and the same should apply when ordering repeat prescriptions. If you don’t need it or won’t take it, then don’t order it.”

Campaign posters and leaflets advise the public how to help cut the cost of wasted drugs in Tayside.

Key messages are: *

* The most expensive medicine is the one you don’t take—if you don’t need it, don’t order it.

* Think before you order medication: don’t stockpile.

* Tell your GP or pharmacist if there is anything you are no longer taking.

* Don’t be tempted to order extra medicines as a stand-by as medicines go out of date, or your medicine may be changed to another.

* Get medicines reviewed by your GP, pharmacist or nurse to ensure they work for you, you are taking them regularly and you are not suffering any side effects.