<strong>East Midlands Adoption Campaign for the Patient Medicine Bag</strong> (PMB)

East Midlands Ambulance Service Chief Executive Paul Phillips said:

“Using the Patient Medicine Bags within the ambulance service is a simple but effective way of ensuring all medicines and prescriptions are transported to hospital together with the patient. Not only do the bags save time on scene following a 999 call but, more importantly, they ensure that patient care and patient safety are the priority and ultimately that saves lives.”

Andrea Atkinson, Project Manager, Pharmacy Department, Royal Derby Hospitals said:

"Here at DHFT we encourage the use of patients’ own medicines, where appropriate, during hospital stays, because of benefits to patient safety, patient experience and waste reduction. We, therefore, support the green medicine bag scheme, as it forms part of our overall plan to promote this.

 For our elective patients, we offer green medicine bags to those attending pre-op clinics.  Within all our emergency and assessment areas, stocks are kept of the green medicine bags. If a patient, therefore, doesn’t bring in their medicines, we issue a bag to their relatives, friends or carers and ask them to use it for transporting in any medicines."

East Midlands Ambulance Service General Manager, George Gray said:

"East Midlands Ambulance Service undertake via its Non-Emergency Patient Transport Services the transportation of patients in and out of Hospital sites across the East MIdlands. The organisation is happy to support the Patient Medicine Bag initiative and its staff will encourage patients to use the bags particularly when Hospital Admissions apply"

East Midlands Ambulance Service Director of Finance, Brian Brewster said:

"As the saying goes, ‘The simple ideas are often the best’.  If they also save money, even better!  The Patient Medicine Bag fits this criteria. 

Potential annual savings of £2.5m* across the East Midlands is deliverable with modest engagement and commitment to standardise elements of medicines management across partner organisations.  EMAS with its regional service profile is creating the opportunity by adopting the ‘Patient Medicine Bag’ to hand over medications at our interface with other services.  

This simple plastic bag becomes much more than a bag - it is a tool to improve medicines management and minimise waste."

* Based on YORK Health Economics CONSORTIUM evaluation.