Elmbridge residents are being asked to get behind a new campaign aimed at reducing the amount of medicines that go unused.
The Think Before You Tick campaign encourages people to think before they apply for repeat prescriptions in a bid to reduce the £8m NHS Surrey spends on medicines each year which go unused.
The campaign’s main message is: “What is the most costly NHS medicine? An unused medicine.”
Once issued, medicines cannot be reused and each year in Surrey more than 35 tonnes of unused prescription drugs are collected or returned from patients.
They end up in the incinerator and the £8m it costs the local NHS is enough to cover the cost of 1,600 hip replacements or 240 more community nurses.
Kevin Solomons, head of medicines management at NHS Surrey, said: “For people who only need the odd prescription, unused medicines is unlikely to be too much of a problem, but for people who use several medicines at a time and have lots of items on repeat prescription it can be very easy to end up with unused medicines.
“People can support our campaign by ordering only what they need, think before you tick, and not stock-piling medicines at home because you can always re-order when they need them.”
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