A report by the Department of Health reveals that community pharmacies and dispensaries are directly responsible for roughly £110 million of medicine waste annually, often driven by over-ordering and poor stock rotation.
However, around £180 million of waste occurs earlier in the supply chain before medicines even reach patients, highlighting significant information gaps. Wholesale distributors and general practices struggle to match local clinical demand with manufacturing schedules, resulting in excess production of niche medications that eventually expire.
At the final stage, patients discard or fail to consume approximately £300 million of prescribed medication each year. This points towards irrational behaviour, where individuals fail to complete full therapeutic courses because they feel immediate relief (present bias), or accumulate surplus medications due to habit and status quo bias. In response, some local health authorities are funding medicine review clinics, using digital alerts, and launching educational campaigns on prescription adherence.
Assess the extent to which 'information gaps' (Extract B) and 'irrational behaviour' (Extract B) are the main causes of medicine waste in the UK healthcare system.