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Guides/Health

Medication and
medical devices

The bag has a medication pouch and it is empty, because only you know what goes in it. This guide is the conversation to have with your pharmacist this week, so that a power cut or a night away is a nuisance and not a crisis.

6 min readChecked against NHS and Diabetes UK guidance; always follow your own prescriberUpdated November 2026Print this guide
This weekonce

The pharmacist conversation

  1. Ask for a printed list of everything you take, with doses and times. One copy in the medication pouch, one with the contacts card. In an emergency, this is what the paramedic reads.
  2. Ask how each medicine copes without a fridge, and for how long. Most insulin keeps for up to 28 days at room temperature once out of the fridge, below 25 degrees, but check your own leaflet; some medicines spoil faster, some are fine for years.
  3. Ask about keeping a few days in hand. Many pharmacies can help you build a small buffer so a missed delivery or a closed shop doesn't mean a missed dose. Rotate it: oldest first.
  4. Register with your energy network's Priority Services Register if anyone in the house depends on a powered device, insulin, or a stairlift. It's free, and they call you first in a cut.
Withoutpower

Devices that need the mains

  1. Oxygen concentrators, ventilators and home dialysis: your supplier will have told you what the backup is. If they haven't, ring them this week. If a device stops and you have no backup, it is 999, not a wait.
  2. CPAP: a night without it is unpleasant and, for most people, not dangerous, but talk to your sleep clinic now about a battery pack if you are in the group for whom it matters.
  3. Powered wheelchairs and stairlifts: know where the manual release is, and where the person sleeps if upstairs is out of reach.
  4. Fridge medicines: keep the fridge shut; four hours is usually fine. Beyond that, a cool bag with the frozen pouches from the freezer, and the leaflet's temperature rules.

Never

Never stop a prescribed medicine because you are worried about running out; halve the worry, not the dose. Ring 111 for advice, or your pharmacist, before you change anything.

Awayfrom home

If you have to leave

  1. The medication pouch travels in the Operator's green pouch, with the printed list. Take the whole box, not loose tablets, so the label travels too.
  2. Keep the pill organiser filled for the week ahead; it is the thing that keeps a routine when everything else has gone.
  3. Tell whoever you are staying with, or the rest centre, what you take and when. Ask them to remind you; stress makes people forget doses.
  4. If you run out, a pharmacist can often provide an emergency supply of a regular medicine without a prescription. Ask; don't go without.

Sources, checked November 2026