OTC painkillers

[MrsT84]

Today I was shopping with my mum. She wanted to buy paracetamol and hay-fever tablets and I needed ibuprofen, two packets of each. When we got to the till they refused to serve both of us. Either one or the other, saying as we entered the shop together we couldn't both buy painkillers or the shop could be fined £1000. Never had this before but went along with it and mum purchased her tablets. Went along the road to a different store and both purchased two packets of ibuprofen without issue. Anyone know which shop was correct? (Note: we aren't misusing OTC painkillers - I am recovering from spinal surgery and mum has chronic pain from back injury and a recovering fractured shoulder.)

Yes, this is the law and has been since 2016. There is also additonal guidance which most places following where they discourage sales of combinations of paracetamol, aspirin and ibuprofen.

Yes they were correct.

The first shop was correct

The guidelines refer to a maximum of two packets per transaction, so if you and your mum were paying in separate transactions then technically they wouldn’t have been in breach of guidelines to sell to both of you. However, stores are at liberty to apply their own more restrictive guidelines if they choose to. It sounds like they’re confusing the painkiller guidelines with underage sale of restricted products in terms of saying they’d be fined £1,000 though.

Yes max 2 packs per person, even if a product like Lemsip.

We were doing two separate transactions though. Both definitely over 16 as well and both from different households.

The two packets per transaction is ultimately just MHRA guidelines for retailers. It’s then up to an individual store whether or not they choose to sell two packets to each of you if you pay in separate transactions, or to have a separate policy of their own where they will only sell you one packet each if you entered the store together.

But they were incorrect about being fined if they sold two packets to each of you. The law refers to the maximum number of tablets that can be contained in a packet, which is 16 unless sold by/under supervision of a pharmacist, in which case it’s 32; and a maximum upper limit of 100 tablets in any one transaction.