Drugs: Safety
(asked on 2nd January 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance his Department has issued to pharmacies on safe dosing of over‑the‑counter cold and flu remedies.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is an executive agency of the Department with responsibility for ensuring medicines meet appropriate standards of quality, efficacy and safety. The MHRA has recently updated voluntary Best Practice Guidance on the general sale of medicines for pain, to further highlight the risks of overdose, to address public concerns and recognise current sales techniques. Links are also provided to patient support groups, including Papyrus for young people. The update was undertaken in collaboration with retailers, stakeholders and healthcare professionals including pharmacists and the updated guidance is available at the following link:
Most retailers adhere to the guidelines on not promoting multiple purchases and have introduced in store measures such as till bars that restrict sales to a maximum of two packs across a range of products containing aspirin, paracetamol, or ibuprofen. The aim of these voluntary measures is to balance the need of people for access to pain relief medicines against the dangers for vulnerable individuals and to reduce the opportunity for customers to purchase on impulse excessive quantities of any single analgesic, like paracetamol, aspirin, or ibuprofen.
The use of paracetamol and accidental overdose is a safety concern, especially in relation to the many trade names of non-prescription and prescription medicines containing paracetamol. Therefore, the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 contain a number of conditions for the presentation of these medicines to highlight the presence of paracetamol in a medicine, including the requirement for “paracetamol” or “contains paracetamol” to be on the outer packaging. In addition, the patient information leaflet should include the warning “Do not take anything else containing paracetamol while taking this medicine”.
For those medicines containing paracetamol which are prescribed to a patient, the statutory warnings should be added to the prescribing label which is applied to the box by the pharmacist. These are highlighted in the British National Formulary, with further information available at the following link:
https://bnf.nice.org.uk/about/labels/
The Summary of Product Characteristics for healthcare professionals including pharmacist, provides a summary of the clinical particulars in the use of a medicine, including the recommended maximum daily dose. In addition, particulars in reference to overdose are provided. This includes the potential dose over which liver damage may occur and potential risk factors which may elevate the risk of overdose, including medical history, concomitant medicines, or alcohol intake. A summary of the symptoms of overdose and management are also provided.