Our medicine waste campaign aims to reduce unnecessary medicine waste by giving clinical colleagues practical tips.

If every To Take Out (TTO) was completed with the correct amount of medicines, this would equate to an approximate saving of £22 per TTO. That adds up to approximately £1,760 per day, or £459,360 per year.* These figures are purely money saved from drugs and does not include the time saved by dispensing unnecessary medicines.

Below you can see a photo of two piles of medicine. The pile on the left is what is often ordered and the pile on the right is what is actually needed. 

Pharmacist, Lisa Hodgson, said: "This campaign is not purely about reducing medication waste and saving money. Every duplicated medication taken home by a patient increases their risk of confusion (not all packs of the same medication look the same) and they could take multiple medications by mistake.

"It also helps us to get our patients back home in a more timely manner – dispensing two items is far quicker than dispensing 12 items – freeing up much needed beds within the Trust and getting our patients home safely at a reasonable time."

Here are some simple ways for us to stop medicine waste:

• Please ask patients to bring their medication to hospital.
• Check with the patient or the patient's family what medication they already have at home before ordering medication.
• If the family can bring the patient's medication into hospital, please ask them to.
• If patients have brought their medication to hospital, don't send them home. These can be dispensed whist here.
• If they transfer to a different ward or department, make sure they are sent with their medication.
• For discharge - always check what the patient has already got at home. Only order what they need.
• Check what you've already got on the ward stock list to help you know what does or doesn't need ordering.

*These figures are based on the average of 40 TTOs per day, Monday to Friday.