Medication safety

Most of us have a drawer or cupboard somewhere with a graveyard of half-finished antibiotics, expired painkillers, and that mystery cream from 2019 and most of us never think about it until we're rummaging for something at 11pm.

A quick clean-out once a year is one of the simpler health habits worth building. Expired medications can lose their potency (so they don't work when you need them), and in a few cases the chemistry actually changes over time making them less effective or, occasionally, less safe.

A few rules of thumb: tablets and capsules generally last to their printed expiry; eye drops and liquid antibiotics are only good for around four weeks once opened; creams and ointments often separate or go off well before the printed date if they've been left in a warm bathroom.

And please don't flush old medications or chuck them in the bin bring them in to us instead. We're part of the Return Unwanted Medicines (RUM) Project, which means we'll take any expired or no-longer-needed medications off your hands, no questions asked, and dispose of them safely.

Drop them in any time during pharmacy hours.