Pharmacists Say Medicine Waste Costs NHS £480m Yearly

A central reason for the scale of the problem lies in a strict safety rule. Once a medicine has been dispensed and handed to a patient, it cannot be returned to a pharmacy's stock, even if the packaging is unopened and the seal remains intact. Unused drugs must instead be destroyed through a specialist disposal process rather than placed in ordinary household rubbish, which adds a further cost to the health service. Pharmacists say the waste is driven partly by patients over-ordering repeat prescriptions, and partly by courses of treatment that are never finished; staff frequently receive half-completed packets of antibiotics returned to the counter.

Olivier Picard, chair of the association, said the money lost each year could otherwise be invested in better services for patients, and urged the public to request a repeat prescription only when they are certain they will use it. He also called for patients taking several medicines at once to receive more frequent reviews, so that drugs that are no longer needed can be identified and stopped. Dr Rasha Abdelsalam Elshenawy, a senior lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire, argued that the issue reaches beyond money and the environment: antibiotics left over at home are frequently swallowed at a later date without any medical advice, a habit that accelerates antimicrobial resistance. Incorrectly discarded medicines can also leak into the water supply. NHS England responded that patients can now manage repeat prescriptions through its mobile app, and that several local services are running campaigns to cut medicine waste.