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You and Yours: Wasted Medicines; Food Labelling; Smart Toys

11/12/2019

Wasted Medicines; Food Labelling; Smart Toys

BBC Radio 4 - You and Yours, Wasted Medicines; Food Labelling; Smart Toys

Care homes are accused of over-ordering medicines which then get destroyed.

As the NHS struggles with some medicine shortages, we hear how some care homes routinely destroy medicines that are over-ordered. Plus what you need to know about Smart Toys.

You & Yours has been speaking to a former care home charge nurse who says they were instructed to routinely destroy unused medicines on night shifts. The nurse claims the care home group where they worked would order the same number of drugs each month for each resident, regardless of what was left in their personal medicine cabinets. The NHS has recently been experiencing shortages of some medicines. NHS England is planning to roll out a programme in which care homes get regular visits from pharmacists and GPs to prevent over-prescribing and reduce wastage. A report in 2009 estimated that medicines worth £50m get wasted by care homes each year. 

Researchers say food labels that tell consumers how much exercise they would need to do to burn off the calories in the product would help cut obesity. A team at Loughborough University looked at 14 studies, says this type of labelling could cut about 200 calories from a person's daily average in take. You & Yours speaks to Dr Michael Mosley about the research, and asks the Food and Drink Federation if it would support this sort of imitative. 

As Christmas approaches, we find out what's important to know when buying children Smart Toys this year - those are ones that are Bluetooth or internet enabled. It follows criticism from the consumer group Which? about the disappointing number of companies that have signed up to the Government's code of practice for smart toys. Which? has tested of seven of the most popular, and found all but one were lacking basic security, leaving them open to being hacked. 

Presented by Melanie Abbot
Produced by Natalie Donovan

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