Unable to return/reuse prescription medicines

It absolutely is. I am on a prescription medicine which was changed recently. Similar medicine different dosage. There was already a prescription of the original medication at the pharmacy already. I explained and left the one there. If I had just taken it out of the shop , never mind home it who’d have been thrown away, they never reissue in case something goes wrong and they are sued! It’s a scandal, it wastes so much money. As long as it’s still in the original packaging what’s the problem?

I took a pack of blood thinning tablets that had been included with DH’s meds when they should have been taken off his prescription. The lady in the chemist said they were only allowed to take them if I removed them from the packaging (which had not been opened) first! She was not allowed to do it; I had to do it and dispose of the packaging. I had never heard of anything so bizarre!

Greyduster

I took a pack of blood thinning tablets that had been included with DH’s meds when they should have been taken off his prescription. The lady in the chemist said they were only allowed to take them if I removed them from the packaging (which had not been opened) first! She was not allowed to do it; I had to do it and dispose of the packaging. I had never heard of anything so bizarre!

Same thing happened to me on numerous occasions. I was again advised last week that I must remove the medication from the packaging. My medication is forever being changed, so much so, that initially my GP only issues a prescription for one box, as I have too many reactions to new meds. That sounds sensible to me.

I can only assume, removing from the box is to do with patient confidentiality. I could of course, be totally wrong!

Once medications have been removed from oversight by medical/pharmacy staff the contents cannot be guaranteed not to have been tampered with. That’s why they won’t be reissued.

SueDonim

Once medications have been removed from oversight by medical/pharmacy staff the contents cannot be guaranteed not to have been tampered with. That’s why they won’t be reissued.

But in our case these were sealed boxes! They couldn't have been tampered with. When I explained this the reply was that "they could have been stored in unsuitable conditions" - what rubbish! If that was the case, surely they would be dangerous for the person they were prescribed for too!
I've searched online for charities that could use them, either here or abroad, but it appears to be against UK law.

2 black sacks full of my daughters meds had to be disposed of.
That's without all the walking aids at my mums that I was told to just throw away.

The other reason is even if the box is sealed they cannot guarantee the box was stored as per the boxes instructions, ie, out of the sun, or kept cool etc. Imagine if someone was seriously harmed or died from drugs that were ineffective because they had been handed back after not being stored correctly. They can’t take the risk of hurting people or being sued.

There are alternatives. My friends daughter was doing ivf privately and cobbled together her drugs free from Facebook groups from kind other mothers to be donating their surplus from successful rounds who no longer needed them. It would have cost her thousands just for the drugs otherwise.

You maybe able to give them away online in a closed forum or group. There are also groups taking medical donations for Ukrainian and the like, do some research I'm sure you will find a grateful recipient.

When my husband died I had a substantial amount of morphine etc. left in the house. While he was alive the nurses kept a record and once when a small amount was missing it was treated as a major incident. It had slipped down the side of the chair.
After his death I asked the nurses to take away all the medication but they told me they were not allowed to do so. I was told to take it to the pharmacy to be destroyed but I couldn’t face having to explain my husband had died to a stranger and I was appalled it couldn’t be reused.

I eventually gave it to an organisation which ships unwanted medication to Africa.

Many years ago, in France, we used to return unused medicines to be reused. However, it stopped as is was found that some was being resold. Now, we return them to the chemist’s to be destroyed.

You couldn’t tell whether the seemingly-sealed boxes had been repackaged or similar. My friend is a quality control pharmaceutical chemist of long-standing. You honestly wouldn’t believe the things people do to medications - your hair would stand on end.

I have returned a few packs of medication but never ask anything. I just hand them over. I dare not ask in case the reply makes me incandescent with rage, which it probably will.

My mother was a nurse in the 1940s and I still have her syringe and some tiny bottles of liquid in phials. They used the same syringe for different patients (shock horror) obviously sterilized most carefully. Very sensible I thought, but the only not so good aspect was the size of the needle!

SueDonim

You couldn’t tell whether the seemingly-sealed boxes had been repackaged or similar. My friend is a quality control pharmaceutical chemist of long-standing. You honestly wouldn’t believe the things people do to medications - your hair would stand on end.

Make my hair stand on end please. It's been looking a bit flat lately.

I would have thought cobbling together her IVF drugs free from kind Facebook friends would have been very risky, even if cheap. After reading this thread, how would you know how they had been stored or how old they were?

My DH also had anti- coagulants after breaking his ankle. We were told how expensive they were! Luckily, he used all his up.

The waste of prescription drugs is shocking, and when you hear how the NHS struggles, you can see why.

That was a teaser SueDonim! ?

Definitely risky, but she couldn’t have afforded it otherwise. Due to the postcode lottery she was only able to have one round of IVF, most areas it is 3, and they couldn’t quite afford ivf and the drugs even with a loan so had to take some creative steps to achieve their goal.

I’m not sure why my friend, her mother didn’t help out, they certainly could afford it. I wouldn’t have let my child take that risk.

It has always been so
GrandmaTK you never have been able to return medication even in a sealed box they can’t know where they have been kept or whether the temperature has been correct or if they have been tampered with Once they have left the pharmacy they cannot be taken back It is a terrible dilemma though

I totally agree about the waste but the alternative is to give them out in much smaller quantities then I suppose people would be complaining they have to keep getting a few at a time

We cannot even give them to other countries, again because we could be giving them something that at best didn’t work at worst harmed people

Would you want to be the receiver of medication which could be less effective or even dangerous

What would be your suggestion ?

Calendargirl
Your last sentence, how true ? It’s tax payers money, isn’t it?
It will just keep coming.
I have a friend who was a trauma nurse at Southend hospital. He fought for years trying to save money but nobody wanted to know.
Nothing will change ?

OH and myself are both on quite a few meds and inhalers but we don't always need every item each month, when he collects the repeat prescriptions he opens the bags before leaving the pharmacy and hands back the items we don't need at that time. The pharmacists accepts these, removes the labels and they go back into stock. It's simple to do, just takes a bit of foresight.

H1954

OH and myself are both on quite a few meds and inhalers but we don't always need every item each month, when he collects the repeat prescriptions he opens the bags before leaving the pharmacy and hands back the items we don't need at that time. The pharmacists accepts these, removes the labels and they go back into stock. It's simple to do, just takes a bit of foresight.

A bit of foresight would be to not order what you don’t need.

Part of the problem you had was that the medications had a needle or sharps. When my daughter died I had boxes of pre filled syringes and also loads of sealed boxes of small sharp device for finger pricking. In all it was two carrier bags full. I was told I had to unseal the boxes and put all the sharpes into her yellow sharpes box, which I simply refused to do The surgery was willing to take them and I had to take them down and leave them in a special place, which I did. Different areas have different ways for collection, here in my home town it’s the council who collects the sharps.

Espee - same with my DH. Phials and phials of morphine, still boxed to dispose of and meds being delivered to the door only a few hours before he died. I ended up with a sackful of stuff to be destroyed - must’ve been worth a fortune. I wish I’d known I could have donated it, but it was last March in lockdown.

Yes, we had to dispose of medication given to my daughter when she broke her leg. I had to take it to the one pharmacy in town that accepted such things, and was made to feel rather inadequate and dirty by the others I tried first, including our own drs surgery.
The crutches supplied by the hospital were refused by them as they 'couldn't clean' them, but the Red Cross were pleased to have them.
It was all very odd, as if I was trying to do a deal on the street corner rather than return things to the people who had given them out!

I have to order repeat prescriptions for my husband monthly- our old GP’s allowed 3-4 months worth.
Although a bit of a pain to remember it does mean less waste and if he has too much of anything I don’t order it for a month.
That said it does take a bit of organising (he has 10 different medications taken at different times of day) and I can easily understand if there is no one to keep close track of it how it can get out of hand!

Absolutely. We used to have a friend (no longer with us) who used to stockpile a mass of free prescription items. More than once I counted over 60 items - only maybe 4 or 5 preparations but multiples of each - on his bathroom shelves.

And more than once, another visiting friend, an ex nurse, would check the dates and throw the vast majority away. When he eventually died, there were so many items to get rid of, including e.g. big packs of prescription paracetamol, which you can buy for pennies anywhere.

What irked me especially was that although he had plenty of money* he was unbelievably tight, so if he’d had to pay even £2 or £3 per item he’d never have stockpiled so many that he didn’t need.

*He left two houses paid for and well over £1m in cash, which I do know because dh was an executor.