Record returns

The non-dispensing scheme is ticking along nicely. Most of the ‘non-dispensed’ items so far seem to be prn painkillers. I’ve also been talking to our locums who work in pharmacies which do have a few repeat dispensing patients and they have given me some great tips about where the system can potentially fall down with patients.

One ‘top tip’ is to stress to patients that once they decide they don’t need a medicine on their regular repeat, they can’t then change their mind at a later date. Therefore we have started to stress this as part of the non-dispensing scheme.

And sticking with the theme of ‘non dispensing’ and reducing drug wastage, we recently had a bit of a record with patient-returned medicines when we were given 19 unopened boxes of orlistat from one patient. I know that patients who request medicines they don’t actually need tend to do so either to ‘make sure they have enough at home’ or because they want the doctor to think they are dutifully taking their medicines.

However, we were quite amazed at how this patient had managed to accumulate nearly 2 years worth of this drug, since they should have been regularly monitored as part of a weight loss programme.