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You may have noticed more and more restaurants and bars are replacing their physical paper menus with QR codes, which you just scan with your phone to read the menu online. Not only is it a cost-saving measure for the businesses as they don’t have to print and reprint their menus, but it is also better for the environment as less paper is used.

 

Now, Spain and the European Union are thinking of doing the same with the informative leaflets that come with medications sold at the chemist, but the decision has divided opinions.

 

A survey carried out by the Organisation of Consumers and Users (OCU) has found that 78% of people living in Spain (and 83% of those over the age of 63) are opposed to the possibility of replacing the paper package leaflet for medicines with information in electronic form, as envisaged in the draft European pharmaceutical legislation currently under discussion.

 

Furthermore, 80% said that they read the leaflet when taking a medication for the first time, and up to 88% when self-medicating rather than having it prescribed by a doctor.

 

The purpose of these leaflets are to provide information about any side-effects of the medication, contraindications, how to take it and other similar details. Even if they experience a non-serious side-effect after taking a medicine, 44% read it again.

 

Spain’s OCU, together with the other consumer associations of the Euroconsumers group in Italy, Belgium and Portugal, are all in favour of the use of a QR code containing the information on the package leaflet, but say that under no circumstances should it replace the paper leaflet.

 

The organisation is aware that in some Spanish hospitals the change has already been piloted for some hospital drugs. It also considers that this environment is ideal because patients do not need to consult the package leaflet.

 

But as the National Statistics Institute (INE) indicates that eight out of ten people over the age of 55 lack basic digital skills, they do not recommend getting rid of the paper leaflet yet for medicines that patients take at home.

 

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