Do foodbanks accept calpol?

[Cabbageandpeas]

Hi, does anyone know if foodbanks accept calpol, paracetamol etc? I’ve emailed our local Trussell trust one to ask, but not heard back.

My local one can not accept anything of that sort, however it is not a Trussell Trust one so their rules might be different.

Thanks for replying. I’ll maybe ask on their Facebook page

It's not on the list of non-food items on its website . I massively doubt they'd accept it as it could be misused and they would rightly want to avoid any claim of liability.

If you're exempt from paying for prescription charges you can ask if your local pharmacy takes part in the NHS Minor Ailment Scheme, and through that you can consult the pharmacist who may be able to provide treatment free of charge for things like coughs and colds, fever, headlice, all sorts. There's info about it online e.g. the Boots website here www.boots.com/nhs-services/minorailments.

No

I asked one of my local food bank places a while ago and sadly they don't, nor do they accept headlice treatment. I can understand why they can't accept medicines but it does break my heart that someone suffering enough to need food donations cannot be helped with medicines. Hopefully schools etc can have some kind of way of helping people out in these circumstances.

Families who are struggling to pay for things like basic medicines can get help. Children’s medicines in particular can be got for free on prescription.
If you need to you can speak to your gp and they should be able to sort this out.

no. they are not allowed to give out medicines, not even the ones you buy off the shelf in the supermarket.
they would have to throw it away.