I didn’t realise giving my builder painkillers could land me in jail

Like most people, my morning routine began with a shower, teeth cleaning and all over moisturiser.

To the unsuspecting eye, I was just like everyone else.

However, my toothpaste and moisturiser weren’t items I’d actually purchased, but were prescribed medications for specific conditions. The problem is, they weren’t actually for my conditions, but prescribed for other people’s medical ailments.

I was one of the many individuals who shared prescriptions with friends, family and even neighbours – until recently.

I’d been given strong painkillers for slipped discs a few years ago, but I didn’t get on with them at all – they made me feel dizzy and slightly out of control. So I kept them anyway, as you just never know.

A year later, I was having some building work done and my poor builder had some back pain, so I ended up offering them to him. He was soon up and about, and my garden renovations were done in no time.

But this all stopped when I made the shocking realisation after stumbling across an article: Prescription sharing is illegal.

According to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA), supplying prescription drugs for those it isn’t intended for is breaking the law. So those of us merrily sharing our drugs are all committing an actual crime.

With my builder, I didn’t ever consider the possible fallout from that incident. He could’ve had an allergic reaction to the painkillers, and they could have even killed him. 

It’s quite sobering that I may have been charged with manslaughter as I handed the drugs to him, which could have been seen as misuse and is entirely possible in this situation.

Even if he didn’t die, by taking the pills directly from me, he hadn’t had a chance to read the side effects listed on the leaflet inside. What if they’d made him drowsy and he was driving home? 

For this reason, I recently decided to stop all prescription-sharing.

But according to research, I wasn’t alone in this practice in the first place. 

A UK survey in 2010 by Lloyds Pharmacy estimated that 14% of people have shared medications. While a 2014 systematic review study by Beyene et al put this figure at around 50%.

Now, that’s a heck of a jump. My reasoning tells me that the Covid-19 years caused have also caused an increase. 

In 2020, we couldn’t get appointments to see our GPs, therefore we were left diagnosing ourselves courtesy of Dr Google. My own ‘misuse’ of medications is certainly from this time.

I was prescribed a steroid nasal spray from my GP for a deviated septum in my nostril back in 2020. I kept putting off organising my repeat prescription, as I was so busy and it was a time-consuming faff.

I had to wait ages for the receptionist to answer the phone, then ask for the prescription, pick it up and drop it to the pharmacist. From there, I had to wait a week to pick up my spray.

So I reasoned: Why can’t I have it on an automatic repeat? It’s not a dangerous medication and I’ve been told I need it for life.

I complained to a friend about it, who promptly gave me three boxes of the stuff. I was thrilled, followed by curious as to why she had so many.

She explained that her prescription contained six items every month. In truth, she only needed four of them. The extra two were just added to her bag as no one had bothered to remove them from an old health issue – so she gave them to me.

Both of us, reluctant to have to jump through unnecessary hoops to rectify our situations – and painfully aware that we’d only be adding to the workload of the already-stretched NHS – felt like this was the perfect solution. 

On top of this, I was using eczema cream as a body moisturiser, which was for my dry legs. I got this from an elderly neighbour who never actually used it himself. He had it for some flaky skin on his elbows, which soon dried up but he kept collecting it for free from his chemist. 

It was still on his monthly prescription and it didn’t seem important to cancel. By then, others like myself were using it and he kept the order just for us.

As for the toothpaste, it was from a friend. She has cancer and it’s a sensitive blend and helps my gum disease greatly. It stopped any gum bleeding almost immediately. She gets it monthly, but always had loads left over and passed it on to me, along with a mouthwash. 

If they’d asked her, she would have said one tube would last her about three months. However, she was never consulted on her individual needs and when having check-ups, the over-prescription of her toothpaste never met the list of ‘most important things to ask doctors about’. 

There seems a familiar pattern of not consulting patients on their personal needs and having a ‘one size fits all policy’.

Not surprisingly, studies suggest that analgesics and antibiotics are the most-shared drugs. 

I have taken my husband’s surplus penicillin, after he’d been prescribed it for tonsillitis. I took it for a water infection, which my GP advised I wait a few days to see if it disappeared on its own.

But I was in huge discomfort, and didn’t want to wait any longer. Hubby’s antibiotics did the trick in three days.

And, of course, I’ve been guilty of sharing my own tablets, too. But ever since the incident with my builder, I’ve stopped prescription sharing.

Of course, it was hard to actually have to buy these items instead of getting them for free. I didn’t realise how expensive any of it actually was (£10 for toothpaste!).

I’m now back at my doctor’s surgery getting my nasal spray on repeat prescription. I’m not loving the effort involved but it’s an honest life and one where I can sleep peacefully at night.

This decision got me thinking about the cost of prescription-sharing to the NHS. How many unwanted prescriptions are being picked up every month?

At best, they’re being discarded and – at worst – being passed around to others who are self-diagnosing and possibly putting themselves or others at risk.

Our last government recognised that 10% of prescribed medicines are done so unnecessarily, but so far nothing has been put into action to curb this waste. And we only need to read the news to see the impact it might be having. 

We all remember the HRT shortages that hit headlines back in 2021, but have been in short supply since 2018. It drove middle-aged women into panic buying via the internet or the black market, and sharing their prescriptions out at a risk to their health.

Not to mention the shortages of diabetes medication (likely to last until the end of this year), as well as epilepsy and ADHD medication, too. 

My own husband has Type 1 diabetes and is completely dependent on insulin. Within a few days, he would die without it. It’s a very sobering thought.

We are all aware that the NHS is haemorrhaging money on a daily basis. This is no secret.

However, if they started on the ground floor – such as tailoring medications to each patient and giving three-monthly prescription checks – this would be an effective step. Most patients can’t be bothered to cancel their prescriptions but if someone made it easy for them, they probably would.

A nurse or pharmacist could carry out this simple checklist. It could even be done on the telephone.

At the end of the day, I stopped sharing prescriptions because I believe in and love our NHS. I also don’t want a prison sentence just to avoid dry skin…

This article was originally published September 24, 2024

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.