Having a well-stocked first aid box or medical cabinet means you can react quickly when illness strikes, and potentially avoid a trip to the GP or even the A&E.

Michael Lord, of Lord’s Pharmacy in Newmarket, said you can stock your medicine cabinet with all of the essentials using non-branded medicines for around £20.

He recommends your first aid box should contain:

• Plasters

• Eye wash

• Paracetamol - capsules for adults and liquid for children

• Indigestion remedy

• Rehydration sachets

• Pain relief gel

• Thermometer

• Sterile bandages and tubigrip

• Antihistamine - capsules for adults and liquid for children

• Loperamide Hydrochloride

Having these items to hand will mean you can start self medicating as soon as the symptoms arise and deal with minor accidents that might occur in the home.

Mr Lord said: “Everyone should have paracetamol at home, it is very good for reducing fever and as a painkiller, and if you have kids you should have a bottle of the children’s variety.

“You should always keep a thermometer at home too.”

Over-the-counter indigestion remedies can rapidly ease stomach pains, although Mr Lord advises you seek medical help if a child or elderly person who does not normally suffer from indigestion complains of stomach pains.

Tina Lord, a dispenser at the Newmarket shop, recommends a variety of rehydration as well as Loperamide Hydrochloride. “Sickness and diarrhoea effect everyone at some stage,” she said.

“The Loperamide will reduce the frequency of diarrhoea,” said Mr Lord. “And it is important, if you have been being ill for more than a couple of hours, to rehydrate yourself.”

Ms Lord suggests having a variety of plasters for various scrapes, grazes and cuts but also investing in steri-strips for slightly larger wounds that need to “knitting” back together.

Having a box of these fairly cheap ‘paper stitches’ means you could avoid going to A&E to have a small cut stitched up.

And with summer well and truly here, antihistamine in another must. Ms Lord said: “This can be used for rashes, bites, stings and hayfever.”

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