Only 16% of patients who are prescribed a new medicine take it as prescribed, experience no problems and receive as much information as they need.⁹

Ten days after starting a medicine, almost a third of patients are already non-adherent – of these, 55% don't realise they are not taking their medicines correctly, while 45% are intentionally non-adherent.⁹

A study conducted in care homes found that over two thirds of residents were exposed to one or more medication errors.¹⁰

Over half a million medication incidents were reported to the National Patient Safety Agency between 2005 and 2010; 16% of them involved actual patient harm.¹¹

In hospitals, the General Medical Council's EQUIP study demonstrates a prescribing error rate of almost 9%.¹²

In general practice, an estimated 1.7 million serious prescribing errors occurred in 2010.¹³

In primary care, around £300 million of medicines are wasted per year (this is likely to be a conservative estimate), of which £150 million is avoidable.¹⁴

At least 6% of emergency re-admissions are caused by avoidable adverse reactions to medicines.¹⁵

Analysis of the NHS Atlas of Variation highlights unwarranted variations in the prescribing of some medicines across England.