What is a Patient Information Leaflet and why is it useful?

A Patient Information Leaflet (PIL) is the leaflet for patients containing information on taking a medicine, that is included with the medicine packaging. It is written by pharmaceutical companies as a patient version of the Summary of Product Characteristics (SPC). Changes to the PIL after your medicine was packed may mean that the version on medicines.ie may differ from the version found with your medicine. You can compare the “Leaflet prepared or revised date” towards the end of the leaflet in the pack with the version that is on the website to find out if there have been any changes to the information since your medicine was packed.