The green bag scheme was introduced regionally to encourage patients to bring their medicines with them when they come into hospital is now going to be rolled out to local GPs. Issued by the Trust’s emergency departments and admission areas and by the West Midlands Ambulance Service since April of this year, the bags stay with patients in the care setting and at discharge.

By patients bringing in the easily identifiable bags, this helps hospital staff to gain an accurate picture of what medicines they are taking and helps them to review that medication as part of their overall treatment. It also reduces the need to re-prescribe a medicine – reducing the potential for wastage.

Joanne Lees, pharmacy operational site lead for Heart of England, said: “The increase in proportion of patients bringing in their own medicines, particularly in the ambulance cohort, since the introduction of the green medicines bags scheme is very encouraging, with audits showing an increase in patients bringing in their own medicines by 22%. The results show that patients coming in by themselves are much less likely to bring in their own medicines than if brought in by ambulance and so the bags will now also be available at GP practices across the West Midlands.”

If you require any further information about the green bag scheme, please contact joanne.lees@heartofengland.nhs.uk