The 10 day rule defines the period of time where decommissioning of a pack of medicine can be reversed. Reversal will change the pack status on the NMVS from “inactive” to “active”.

Pharmacy contractors should be vigilant to this time scale as it is not permitted to return products that have been decommissioned (and not reversed) back to “saleable stock”, this would prohibit the supply of medicines where more than 10 days have lapsed since the medicine was decommissioned. The use of aggregated codes may help to avoid this scenario and minimise the potential for medicines waste.

Reversal of decommissioning can only take place in certain circumstances:

• Same location i.e. same pharmacy premises
• Within 10 days i.e. 240 hours
• Product is not date expired
• Product is not subject to a recall
• Product has not been supplied to the public i.e. left the premises