To comply with UK environmental regulations, GP practices must register for the collection of returned patient medicines, forms can be downloaded from the health professionals section.

All the medicines we receive are individually checked by a panel of professionally qualified volunteers (doctors, nurses or pharmacists) to ensure –

• They have at least 15 months to run before their expiry date.
• They are intact and have not been damaged in any way.

Subject to passing these quality controls, the medicines are then securely stored until they can be packed and dispatched in accordance with the requirements of each individual health centre. We have to pay to dispose of medicines that we cannot re-use in accordance with the UK’s environmental waste regulations, so we urge donors NOT to send drugs that are not on our list.

To ensure continuity of supply, we also occasionally purchase low-cost generic medicines where a health centre requires something that we do not have in stock. About 25% of the medicines we dispatch each year are purchased in this way.

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