Medicine Waste Campaign 2012

As we all know, medicine waste is a serious and growing problem within the NHS.

The South Central SHA will be launching a medicine waste initiative across its eight PCTs starting on Monday 20th February 2012.  £20 million is the amount of estimated medicines waste generated in SCSHA of which approximately half is deemed avoidable

The campaign is designed to help start a conversation with patient about medicines waste and focuses on 3 key messages:

• Only order what you need
• Dispose of unused medicines safely
• Take your medicines into hospital with you

 The campaign and some of the materials that will be used can be viewed on the website www.medicinewaste.com  and participating Pharmacists and GPs will be provided with logins for the professionals section

What will happen next?

Pharmacists in Hampshire and IOW will receive notification about the campaign in the next week and will be asked to carry out a pre-campaign patient evaluation to measure current attitudes and behaviour.  Campaign materials and guidance will be distributed to all community pharmacies and GP practices in the first few weeks of February ahead of the launch planned for Monday 20th February.

You can expect to receive information leaflets, flyers for attaching to bagged medicines, awareness posters and staff information all branded with the key messages and website information.

What should you do?

• Alert the pharmacy team and have a look at the website
• Look out for the promotional material
• Support the campaign and make the most of the opportunities it brings!

This is aimed at getting patients to talk about their medicines so make that conversation count, provide advice and consider an MUR.  One of the key areas of concern is repeat prescriptions so use the campaign to start a conversation with your local GP Practice about ways you can work together to improve the process and reduce unnecessary prescribing and unused supplies.

The campaign is expected to run until the end of April and the patient evaluation exercise will be repeated in May 2012 to enable comparison between the pre and post surveys and help evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign.