Drugs: Packaging

(asked on 12th June 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of increased uniformity of medication packaging across manufacturers to enable the efficient identification of all medicines.


Answered by
Jackie Doyle-Price Portrait
Jackie Doyle-Price
This question was answered on 20th June 2018

The Government has produced guidance in conjunction with experts in clinical practice and in the field of design for those who produce medicines packaging which recommends the judicious use of colour to ensure medicines are well differentiated to reduce the likelihood of error. In developing the principles within this guidance, the views of healthcare professionals and patients have been considered.

While there are detailed legal requirements with respect to the content of the information provided on the packaging there are no provisions with respect to colour and design of the packaging when presented to the market place.

Published research points to the similarity of packaging contributing adversely to selection errors in the pharmacy and other clinical settings. In addition, we are also mindful of the views expressed by patients whereby differences in appearance of medicines from different suppliers can be confusing. Where specific safety issues have been identified, for example with medicines containing warfarin, particular colours both for the tablets and the packaging have been adopted as an industry standard.

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