Webinar Details
Exclusive to PCPA and NPCHF Members
Webinar: Medicines Waste in Care Homes – Social and Environmental Impacts
Date: 30th September 2026
Time: 12:30 – 2pm
This Centre for Sustainable Healthcare project, funded through Q Exchange by the Health Foundation and NHS England, used the SusQI approach to explore the environmental and social impacts of medicines waste in care homes.
It found that per care home, medicines waste was responsible for:
👣Carbon footprint: 3.2 tCO₂e annually – equivalent to driving 9,425 petrol-car miles or 335 GP appointments
💷Financial loss: £2,125 to £9,404, equivalent to £125 per bed every year
👩⚕️Staff time: 155 hours spent on logging medicines waste disposal, equivalent to 3 hours per week per home.
Working with staff in care homes, general practice, and pharmacies, we measured environmental impact and identified simple interventions to reduce wasteful activity and free up staff time. We have created guidance and case studies to share improvement ideas. More information is available on our project page on the CSH website.
Key takeaways:
- There is low awareness of the extent and impacts of medicine waste within the care home medicines pathway.
- Good communication and an understanding of the processes across sites within the care home pathway can minimise wasteful activity and save staff time at all sites.
- Delivery of medicines can be a carbon hotspot in the care home medicines pathway.Medicines Waste in Care Homes – Social and Environmental Impacts
Chair:
Sundus Jawad, NPCHF Chair, Lead Medicines Optimisation Pharmacist
Speaker
Nuala Hampson
Pharmacy Lead, Centre for Sustainable Healthcare, Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice, University of Sheffield
Nuala Hampson is a pharmacist with a background in education and general practice. Nuala is passionate about education for sustainable healthcare and enabling others through positive action. Nuala is Pharmacy Lead for the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare (CSH), setting strategy for sustainable pharmacy initiatives and sharing sustainable pharmacy practice via the CSH Pharmacy Sustainability Network.
She is also Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice at the University of Sheffield where she is embedding education for sustainable healthcare into the undergraduate pharmacy curriculum and is Sustainability Lead for the School of Allied Health, Pharmacy, Nursing and Midwifery.
Nuala is co-chair of the national Sustainability in Pharmacy Education group, a member of Pharmacy Declares and co-founder of the Greener Primary Care Pharmacy Association group.
