News

NHS Western Isles is holding its first ‘Medicine Amnesty’ event at Broadbay Medical Practice on Thursday 9^th May 2024 from 9am until midday.

The main objective of this event is to reach out to the community, giving them a safe, non-judgmental opportunity to safely discard of any expired or unwanted medicines from their home.  

It is important to adopt a safe approach to disposing of any out-of-date prescribed medication. Binning or flushing unwanted prescribed medication can harm the local environment, cause risk to other people, and cause household toilet/water contamination.

In 2020, it was estimated that there was between £12-18 million of avoidable medicinal waste in Scotland. This is about 10 per cent of the total medicines budget.

Sue Price, Chief Pharmacist, NHS Western Isles, explains: “Even if you never open them, once you leave a pharmacy, your medicines cannot be recycled or used by anyone else. This means that any you return must be destroyed. This is why it’s important to keep on top of your repeat prescriptions, and only order what you need."

Did you know that 365 tonnes of waste are incinerated in Scotland every year? This disposal alone costs £0.25 million a year with a CO2 equivalence of 28 car journeys around the world a year (700,000 miles).

Reasons for the waste have included repeat prescribing of unwanted medicines, medicines being changed, side effects to a medicine, over-ordering by patients, the death of a loved one, and waste in care homes.

The safe disposal of unwanted or un-needed medication is also important to ensure that there is no harm or risk to others within or visiting the household – medications can be a huge safety risk for children and others who might take them in error.

Community pharmacies and dispensing doctors always accept unused medicines for destruction by incineration.

The best way to reduce waste is to only order what you need and not to stock excess medicines at home in case they are needed.

If you are not sure what your medicines are for, or you are worried about using them, please contact your GP practice to make an appointment with the Primary Care Pharmacy (PCP) team.

The PCP team offers support to all patients in the Western Isles and their carers. They are qualified experts in medicines and are available to help people in a range of ways including:

• Carrying out structured medication reviews
• Providing specialist expertise in the use of medicines
• Improving medicines optimisation and safety 

The team does this by offering prescribing and clinical skills either virtually, face-to-face or via the telephone, as part of a multi-disciplinary team made up of health professionals.