Mountain of waste medicine costing us £1.5m a year

The Advertiser can reveal some elderly people are receiving up to four times as many  durgs as they need, despite appeals to doctors and pharmacists to stop the flow.

Former Rotherham councillor Brian Cutts collected a huge mountain containing tens of thousands of pills supplied to a single Bramley pensioner over two years.

He called the problem a scandal and claimed no-one was doing anything to tackle it.

“The problem is just being swept under the carpet and it’s costing the taxpayers millions,” he said.

NHS Rotherham boss Stuart Lakin said GPs and pharmacists were were being asked to make sure drugs were prescribed and dispensed properly and he appealed for patients, particularly those with repeat prescriptions, to think about what they actually needed before ordering more.

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A PLAGUE OF PILLS: Special investigation. See this week’s award-winning Advertiser.