Millions 'lending' prescription drugs, research reveals

Lloyds Pharmacy survey shows old people and the on low incomes most likely to express prescribed drugs

• Royal College of General Practitioners warns of risks of giving wrong drug to wrong personElderly people are some of those more than likely to secure on prescribed drugs to friends. Photograph: Alamy

Ill folks are risking their lives by subtracting drugs like heart tablets and painkillers that have been prescribed for family or friends.

More than a million people per year are using medications created for other people without seeking the guidance their GP, new research reveals.

Professor Steve Field, leading the way of Britain's family doctors, yesterday evening urged people who share medicines to halt before someone died subsequently. The sharing of prescription drugs drugs in this manner is inherently dangerous because neither the person who was simply first prescribed the medication nor anybody now taking them will understand the drug or its side effects, or its likely interaction for some other drugs you might be taking, said Field, chairman in the Royal College of General Practitioners. Those taking them are putting themselves vulnerable to harm as well as death.

Field termed very worrying the effects of a survey by Lloyds Pharmacy, which runs 1,650 chemists' shops through the UK, into people's handling of drugs. Altogether, 14% on the 2,043 adults questioned by pollsters ICM said that they had given prescription medicines along with other people within the last few five-years. That would equate to 6.3m adults within the period.

I was told that Millions Lending Prescription Drugs they'd shared drugs they no longer needed on an average of virtually six occasions, which will mean about 37m doses of medications. Women will do it (16%) than men (10%), ICM found, just like the elderly and people on lower incomes, which might suggest that the cost of dispensing a prescription – £7.20 in England – is a component on the explanation. A quarter of households contains medication and that is don't being used.

Painkillers were the drugs mostly handed down: 66% of those who had shared medication had given those to others. Another drugs included antibiotics (11%), antidepressants (4%) and oral contraceptives (3%), though a lot of people said they'd let others use unwanted medicines helpful to help control heart disease and cholesterol-lowering statins, that are taken by 4 million Britons.

Those who are taking these 'spare' drugs could be in jeopardy because, e.g., they could come with an allergy with a constituent of which, or the medication may have unintended side-effects, said Field. Prescriptions receive on trust between GP and the patient. Drugs should not be shared or forwarded to people they weren't created for. Patients should stop achieving this.

Patients very often say they have got borrowed painkillers from friends, either to save cash, or because they have considered trying something stronger, or as they do not wish to bother their GP or chemist. It is possibly damaging, said Field.

If people borrows very good painkillers they will cause them to become very dopey or confused, especially when these are old, so worries or using machinery at work could become highly risky, for instance.

Lloyds Pharmacy voiced concern at patients passing on medications within the mistaken and dangerous belief they are doing someone a favour. Andy Murdock, its pharmacy relations and governance director, said: Doctors prescribe particular drugs Obama to fit the person needs and circumstances with the patient. When you cross the incorrect drug with all the wrong person, the outcome could possibly be awful, even fatal. What's more, it's likely many with the drugs which might be handed over are old, and that presents its very own dangers.

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