Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what happens to unused medication sealed and in date, in hospitals on the discharge or death of a patient.

In general, if the hospital pharmacy issues medicines to a ward or individual patient and those medicines remain in the organisation, either because they are not supplied on discharge or the patient dies, then the medicines would be returned to ward stock or the pharmacy and re-used. If the medicines had been brought in to the hospital by the patient and the patient is subsequently discharged or dies, and the medicines remain in the hospital, then they would be safely disposed of by the hospital pharmacy.

The main difference between the two scenarios is that, in the first there is sufficient guarantee of the storage conditions to ensure the medicines’ integrity can be assured. In the second scenario, such integrity cannot be guaranteed.