Eleven years of asking the same thing: if a medicine gives you a side effect, report it
What happened
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is running its yearly #MedSafetyWeek campaign from 2 to 8 November 2026. This is the eleventh year it has run. The theme this year is simple: "Side effects: don't ignore them, report them!" The campaign is about one thing. The MHRA wants more people to tell it when a medicine or a medical device seems to have caused a problem. You do that through something called the Yellow Card scheme. The Yellow Card scheme has been going since 1964. It is the UK's way of spotting safety problems with health products after they go on sale. It covers more than just tablets. You can report a problem with medicines, medical devices, vaccines, blood products and e-cigarettes. The MHRA has also made the scheme easier to use. The Yellow Card website and app now work with NHS login. That means you can set up a Yellow Card account, or link one you already have, using the NHS login details you may already use for the NHS App. Alongside the campaign, the MHRA has released new materials for pharmacies, GP surgeries and hospitals. These include posters, waiting room displays and social media graphics. There is also a set of free e-learning modules for health staff, including a British Pharmacological Society assessment that now counts towards professional development.
Why this matters
When a new medicine is approved, it has been tested on a large number of people. But "a large number" is not everyone. A clinical trial might involve a few thousand patients. Once a medicine is on the market, millions may take it. Rare side effects, or ones that only show up after years of use, may simply not appear in a trial. They appear in real life. That gap is what the Yellow Card scheme fills. Every report is a small piece of evidence. On its own, one report usually proves nothing. But when the MHRA sees the same unusual problem reported again and again, it can act. Action can mean a warning added to the leaflet in the box. It can mean advice to doctors to avoid the medicine in certain patients. In rare cases, it can mean a medicine is taken off the market altogether. This only works if people report. And this is where the problem lies. Many people assume someone else has already done it, or that their experience is too small to matter, or that they need to be certain the medicine was the cause. None of that is true. The MHRA is clear: report it even if you are not sure the medicine caused it. Working out whether there is a real link is the MHRA's job, not yours.
What the evidence actually says
It is worth being honest about what a Yellow Card report is and is not. A report is a suspicion. It records that someone had a problem while taking a medicine. It does not prove the medicine caused the problem. People get ill for all sorts of reasons, and some of those will happen by coincidence while they happen to be on a new tablet. This means raw report numbers can be misleading. A medicine taken by ten million people will collect more reports than one taken by ten thousand people, even if it is safer. A medicine that has been in the news will collect more reports because people are looking out for problems. Experts call this reporting bias, and the MHRA takes it into account. What the MHRA looks for is a pattern that does not fit coincidence. Is a particular problem turning up far more often than you would expect in the general population? Does it start soon after people begin the medicine and settle when they stop? The scheme has a real track record. Yellow Card data has fed into major safety decisions over the years, including changes to how medicines are prescribed in pregnancy and restrictions on products where the risks turned out to be larger than first thought. The MHRA's recent safety work has included new measures on how the risks of antidepressants are explained to patients, and the withdrawal of a UK licence for one vaccine after a safety review. So the honest position is this. One report rarely changes anything. Thousands of reports, looked at properly, change a great deal. And the MHRA cannot look at reports that were never sent.
Qurexa perspective
This campaign sits close to what we do every day. Qurexa delivers prescription medicines to people's homes across Lincolnshire, and we support people who are trying to keep on top of a complicated set of tablets. So we see the practical side of this. When your medicines arrive at your door rather than being handed to you over a counter, there is no natural moment where someone asks you how you are getting on with them. That moment has to be made deliberately. If something does not feel right after a change to your medicines, please do not wait to be asked. Ring your pharmacy or your GP surgery. Keeping a quiet note of what happened and when makes that conversation much easier, and it makes a Yellow Card report much easier too. We would far rather hear about a problem early than find out later that someone stopped taking an important medicine on their own because of a side effect nobody knew about.
Practical advice
Here is how to report a suspected side effect. Go to the Yellow Card website at yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk, or download the Yellow Card app from your phone's app store. You can now sign in using NHS login if you already have one. You do not need to be a doctor or a pharmacist. Patients, parents and carers can all report. You can report for yourself or for someone you look after. Before you start, try to have a few things to hand. The name of the medicine, including the strength if you can see it on the box. When you started taking it. What happened, and when it started. Any other medicines you take, including ones you bought yourself. Your age and sex. If you cannot find all of that, report anyway. An incomplete report is far better than no report. If the MHRA contacts you afterwards asking for more detail, please reply. Those follow-up answers are often what turns a vague report into useful evidence. One important point. Reporting a side effect is not the same as getting treatment for it. If you feel seriously unwell, get medical help first. Use NHS 111, your GP, or 999 in an emergency. Report to Yellow Card afterwards. Also, do not stop a prescribed medicine on your own because you suspect a side effect, unless a health professional has told you to or you are having a severe reaction. Some medicines are dangerous to stop suddenly. Speak to your pharmacist or GP first; they can often change the dose or switch you to something else.
What to know
#MedSafetyWeek runs from 2 to 8 November 2026 and this is its eleventh year. The MHRA's message is that suspected side effects should be reported, not ignored. Anyone can report through the Yellow Card scheme, which now links with NHS login. It covers medicines, devices, vaccines, blood products and e-cigarettes. You do not need to be sure the medicine was to blame. One report seldom changes anything by itself. Together, reports are how the UK spots medicine safety problems that trials were too small to find. That is the whole point of the week. If you feel unwell, get medical help first and report afterwards. And speak to a pharmacist or GP before stopping any prescribed medicine. Sources: Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, "#MedSafetyWeek (2 to 8 November 2026): Don't ignore suspected side effects, report them! Updates to the Yellow Card website and app", Drug Safety Update, 26 October 2026, https://www.gov.uk/drug-safety-update/number-medsafetyweek-2-to-8-november-2026-dont-ignore-suspected-side-effects-report-them-updates-to-the-yellow-card-website-and-app; MHRA, "Yellow Card scheme", accessed 4 November 2026, https://yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk/; Community Pharmacy England, "MHRA Drug Safety Update: #MedSafetyWeek (2 to 8 November 2026)", 2026, https://cpe.org.uk/our-news/mhra-drug-safety-update-medsafetyweek-2-to-8-november-2026/ This article is for general information and does not replace advice from a doctor, pharmacist or other qualified healthcare professional.
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