Pouching vs Blister Pack Medication vs Dosette Box

Managing daily medication at home can sometimes get complicated, especially if you or someone you care for takes various medications at different times of the day. Thankfully, several kinds of services or tools can help make organising and taking medicines easier and safer, along with helping to keep a good medication routine. 

In this article, we compare three popular ways to organise and manage medications at home: pouching, blister packs and dosette boxes. We explore what each option involves, who it might suit best and any unique benefits they offer to people taking multiple medications daily. 

Pouching

What is pouching? 

Pouching is an innovative service where all medications are pre-sorted and packed by a trained pharmacist into small, clearly labelled pouches. Each pouch contains all of the tablets or capsules that need to be taken on a specific day and time e.g. Monday at 8am or Thursday at 6pm. 

The pouches come on a roll, with each pouch being torn off and taken when needed, which means that it’s easy to see what needs to be taken next and when. The pouches are delivered directly to the individual’s door through a trusted NHS service partner. 

The benefits of medication pouching

The medication is sorted by a pharmacist, not at home

With pouching, your medication is organised and packed at the pharmacy, according to the GP’s exact instructions, by trained staff, then checked for accuracy. This removes the responsibility (and worry) of potentially making mistakes at home when sorting medication to be taken. This can be especially valuable if the person taking the medication has memory problems or can get confused about taking tablets, has some vision loss or simply has a busy life. 

Ideal for complex medication regimens

If taking several medicines at different times – for example, morning, lunchtime, evening, and bedtime, pouching provides an easy way to handle this automatically. Each pouch is clearly labelled (e.g., "Tuesday 2pm") so there’s no need to think about what to take when.

Easy to take when on the go or away from home

Tearing off the right pouches before leaving home, whether popping out for a few hours or going on holiday, is much simpler than carrying bulky boxes or bottles of tablets everywhere. The pouch labels also include the specific medications and dosage that are inside each one, which can be useful information to have on hand when outside of the home. 

Can improve confidence and independence

Having the pouches prepared and pre-sorted professionally can give individuals the confidence to take medication independently (especially if they have previously relied on someone else to help manage it). The peace of mind that pouching brings can remove a major source of stress and anxiety for those who find managing multiple medications a heavy mental load to bear.

The convenience of home delivery

Prescribed medications can easily be ordered online or through an app and delivered to the door, already pouched and ready to go. Absolutely no sorting or organising is needed at home. 

Blister pack medication

Having medication delivered in a blister pack has some similarities to pouching, in that different medications can be grouped to be taken on specific days and times. Blister packs are usually made of plastic, split into lots of compartments, also sometimes called trays, with a foil backing so that the pills can be pushed out when needed. Often, a blister pack will contain a whole week’s worth of medication.

Pros and cons of blister pack medication

The benefits of blister packs include:

• Check with a glance whether a dose has been taken or not

• The mediation is organised and pre-sorted by a pharmacy

• Can be delivered to your door via an NHS pharmacy service

Some of the potential cons of blister pack medication include:

• A lack of flexibility for complex medication schedules e.g. if doses are needed at unusual times, the blister pack usually can’t convey this information

• Not very environmentally friendly, with the one-time-use plastic and foil combination making blister packs difficult to recycle easily

• Very bulky to carry around, with a week or more of medication in each pack, so not very practical if away from the home

• Risk of taking medication at the wrong time if the patient goes left to right instead of up and down the card and overdosing. 

Dosette Boxes

Dosette boxes are also known as pill organisers or pill boxes and are usually a reusable plastic box that is split into compartments labelled with the day and time the dose should be taken. With dosette boxes, someone at home needs to sort the medication into the right compartments. 

Pros and cons of dosette boxes

The benefits of dosette boxes include:

• They are reusable, so can be refilled each week and therefore create minimal waste

• They offer flexibility, as any new medications or changes can easily be made to the compartments in the box

• They come in a variety of sizes, e.g. a daily box or a larger weekly box, so they can be more portable if going out for the day, for example. 

Potential cons of dosette boxes include:

• A higher risk of mistakes being made with medication, as someone at home needs to manually sort the right tablets or capsules into the relevant sections, with no professional pharmacist to check that it’s correct

• Accuracy down to the carer and if this person is also elderly the risk of making an unintended mistake can be high and cause significant anxiety to the carer. 

• It can be time-consuming to self-sort the medication into the right compartments of the box

• Dosette boxes are not tamper-proof, and compartments can sometimes accidentally open, which could cause medication to be spilled or lost.

Which medication management tool is right for your needs?

Choosing between a dosette box, blister pack or pouching service is very much an individual decision, but asking these questions might help you decide on the best option for your circumstances. 

• How many different times a day do you take medication?
  More than two or three? Pouching may be clearer and easier to manage if so.

• Do your medications or timings change often?
  A dosette box can be updated at home without waiting for the pharmacy to send new pouches or blister packs, although this can also increase the risk of errors being made.

• Are you confident filling a dosette at home?
  If unsure about this, blister packs or pouching, which are prepared by professionals, are generally considered to be safer.

• Do you travel frequently or are you often outside of the home when doses are due?
  Pouching’s tear-off pouches are very portable.

Find out more about how pouching works.