I don’t want anyone to get into trouble what do I do?

[b0mbayb1cycleclub]

I’m a cancer patient and I went to the pharmacy in my village today to pick up my regular prescriptions. Because I have nerve damage from my cancer operation I get 100 tablets of codeine every 2 ish weeks. So usually 3 boxes of 28. With a lot of other drugs

I went to put my tablets in my pill boxes for the week ahead and I’ve noticed that on the prescription label with my details on it. They all say 28tabs but each of the 3 boxes is actually a box of 100 tablets so I’ve been given 300 tablets of codeine 30mg but they had checked the all and signed them off as having 28 per box. I’ve checked each box and they do all contain 100 tablets.

I really don’t want them to get into trouble because it’s one of my life lines as it’s a small village and one of them
will drop off my medication for me if I’ve had chemo and my head is in a bucket, but I equally don’t want their counts to be off

Do I;

A. Just don’t order the codeine for a while and use up this over supply? Or

B. Take the boxes back and tell them they made an error?

B. It is not trying to snitch or any other immature thing but it might help them take precautions to not do it again

Regardless it was not your fault but the rightt thing to do is report it, it is simple to me I would not hesitate for a second

I think they just destroy the returned medication, so perhaps just tell them, possibly your gp too, so you won’t need a repeat prescription for a long longer period than usual

Keep them and use them up. If you take them back, they get destroyed not repurposed and that's a disgusting waste of money in my opinion.

Don’t return them but dotell them, they need to know that their system needs sharpening up.

Many years ago I had a frantic call from a Boots pharmacist because she had given me tablets of 10 times the dose I should take. They were on the side of my plate ready to be eaten after I had had my meal. A nurse at the hospital later told me that somebody had died from a similar mistake.

This sort of thing is really serious. In most organisations, being open about mistakes is essential in order to prevent disasters in the future.

If you know you won't abuse them or increase your tolerance by them being accessible then you can just use them normally and not get a new script till they're finished. Otherwise they will literally have to be thrown away.

Mistakes do happen. You can call the pharmacist and tell them. They won't get in trouble necessarily.

I think you do need to raise it because codeine is a drug that people can become addicted to. Now whilst you know that you aren't , if this had been given out to a different person it could actually be quite dangerous.
I absolutely understand how mistakes happen ( was a Nurse for 35 years myself) but it does need to be incident reported. As others have said it's a serious mistake and they need to be taking more care.

I wouldn't take them back as they can't be reused. I'd phone them and see what they say. It will help them to know that you got too many as their stock will be lower than their records and this may cause them more bother in an audit.

It's happened to me and I just didn't order it for a while.

They told me if I brought them back they would just dispose of them, which I thought was wasteful.

Take them back. Staff may be suspected of stealing them; that won’t be nice.