Comment-Broad spectrum-When medicines are wasted so much is lost: To society as well as patients

摘要: T he availability of money within the NHS is finite and the rational use of limited resources is vital to fair service provision. Over the past few decades, pharmaceutical care and medicines management have developed along various paths to help provide the highest standard of health care within these fixed budgets, leading to a costbenefit approach to health care provision. However, in our view, medicines management has not gone nearly far enough.Over£ 72bn is spent annually on the NHS with more than£ 6.8 bn (8 per cent) of this consumed by the purchase of drugs. This is equivalent to over£ 230 for each of the 29 million UK taxpayers. In the year ending 31 March 2002, 609 tonnes of medicines were incinerated in the UK under the “Disposal of old pharmaceuticals” scheme. This is a 59 per cent rise over the preceding four years although, in the same period, the number of prescription items dispensed rose by …