Bring your own medicines scheme

Please bring all your medicines with you when you come into hospital.

We encourage patients to bring in their own medication when coming in for hospital stays or appointments. This lets you continue using your own medicines during your hospital stay, reducing NHS medicines waste and ensuring you are prescribed the correct medication.

You may also use these medicines and/or ones you have already at home, instead of us supplying medicines again before you go home, helping you get home quicker. 

Any new treatments prescribed in hospital will be supplied for you with full labelled instructions, ready for when you go home.

What are the benefits of the scheme?

• To make sure that your medicines are prescribed correctly in hospital
• To make sure that none of your routine doses are delayed or missed when you first come into the hospital
• To allow that you continue receiving familiar medicines
• To allow some patients to take their medicines themselves during their hospital stay
• To allow your discharge medicines to be prepared more quickly, so you can leave hospital sooner
• To make sure that you are not given a double supply of medicines, which can be risky when medicines pile up at home
• To reduce medicines wastage which conserves NHS resources for patient care and is more environmentally sustainable.

Any medicines brought in can be checked to ensure they are labelled correctly and within their expiry date.

Further information: Medicines assessment for discharge | Patient Information leaflet.