For everyone who has squinted at a leaflet
Understand your medicines.
Scan the box. PlainScript tells you what it is for and how to take it, in language a person can actually read, drawn from sources it names every single time.
For iPhone in the United Kingdom. Free, with no advertising. Now piloting with UK pharmacies.
Atorvastatin 20mg tablets
What it is for
Atorvastatin is a statin. It lowers cholesterol by slowing the enzyme the liver uses to make it, which reduces the fatty deposits that narrow arteries.
How to take it
One tablet once a day, with or without food. Unlike simvastatin it can be taken at whichever time of day you will remember.
Where this comes from
Written by us from NHS medicines information, with a link to the BNF monograph for the complete detail.
Reviewed by Kamiar Azvine, MPharm · 2025
How it works
Three steps, about ten seconds.
Scan the pack
Point the camera at the barcode, or photograph the printed name if the box only has a pharmacy label. It reads either.
Read it in plain English
What it is for, how it is usually taken, what to do about a missed dose, and what to look out for. Written to be understood first time.
Keep what matters
Save the medicines you take, set reminders, and take a short list of questions to your next appointment. All of it stays on your phone.
Before your appointment
Walk in knowing what to ask.
Ten minutes with a GP goes quickly, and the question you meant to ask is the one you remember in the car park. PlainScript turns what you already take into a single page you can hand over.
Prepare
Build one page to take into your appointment.
What is this appointment about?
Your medicines
1 of 3 reviewed
Atorvastatin
20mg · tablets
What should I do if I get unexplained muscle pain, tenderness, or weakness?
Do I need blood tests while taking this statin, and how often?
Ramipril
5mg · capsules
Metformin
500mg · tablets
1 medicine · 2 questions · 1 note
Ready whenever you are
Pick a reason for the visit, tick the questions that apply, and add anything you have noticed.
Appointment notes
For your appointment
Medication review
I take several medicines and want to check they are all still needed and working well together.
Worth checking
Atorvastatin + Clarithromycin — Higher statin side-effect risk
To discuss
Atorvastatin
20mg · tablets
- What should I do if I get unexplained muscle pain, tenderness, or weakness?
- Do I need blood tests while taking this statin, and how often?
- Aching legs most mornings for about three weeks.
Also asking
Could this be related to one of my medicines?
Also taking
Ramipril 5mg · capsules · Metformin 500mg · tablets
Compiled by the patient in PlainScript from their own records. Interaction flags come from a curated checker and are prompts to review, not clinical determinations.
The page it produces. Share it as a PDF, or keep it open on your phone in the room.
You choose every line
Nothing is written for you. Tick the questions you want from the ones prepared for each medicine, add your own, and only what you picked appears.
One page, not ten
Medicines you have not flagged collapse into a single line at the bottom, so the sheet stays short enough that somebody will actually read it.
Built on your phone
The page and its PDF are made on the device. Nothing is uploaded. Send it ahead, or just keep it open in the room.
Beyond medicines
What helps that isn't a pill.
Talking therapies for someone on an antidepressant. A pain management programme for someone on long-term painkillers. NICE guidance recommends approaches like these alongside medicines, and PlainScript shows you the ones that fit what you already take — with an honest label on how each one is reached.
Beyond medicines
Approaches with evidence behind them, matched to what you take.
These work alongside your medicines, never instead of them.
What do you take amitriptyline for?
Low mood and anxiety
Because you take sertraline
Talking therapies (CBT and related)
You can self-referFree on the NHS in England — you can refer yourself directly, without going through a GP.
Mindfulness-based courses
Free to start yourselfRelaxation techniques
Free to start yourselfMatched from your saved medicines. Where a medicine has more than one common use, the app asks instead of assuming.
Matched, never guessed
Some medicines are prescribed for more than one thing, so the app asks what you take it for rather than assuming. Your answer stays on your phone, and “something else” is always an option.
Honest about the route in
Every suggestion says how it is reached: free to start yourself, a service you can self-refer into, or one that needs your GP or pharmacist. We provide information — only a clinician can refer you.
Alongside, never instead
Nothing in it suggests stopping or changing a medicine, and the tab says so on screen, permanently. It is the same rule the rest of the app follows: education, not instruction.
Where it comes from
Every sentence has a source.
Health information online is mostly unattributed. PlainScript works the other way round: nothing appears on a result unless it can be traced to a named, published source, and you can see which one.
Drawn from
- NHS website
- NHS dm+d
- PubMed
- ClinicalTrials.gov
Independent, and not affiliated with or endorsed by the NHS or NICE.
Quotations are reproduced word for word, dated, and linked back to the original. Where we put something into plain English, it is labelled as our writing, not theirs — and the hand-written entries carry the name and qualification of the pharmacist who checked them. You always know whose words you are reading.
Read how sources are handledPrivacy
What you take is nobody else's business.
A list of your medicines is a list of your conditions. That is the most sensitive thing an app like this could hold, so this one holds as little of it as possible.
No account, ever
No sign-up, no sign-in, no profile. The app cannot know who you are.
Nothing tracked
No analytics, no advertising identifier, no third-party SDK of any kind. Not even a cookie on this website.
Your medicines stay put
Saved medicines, doses and reminders are stored only on your phone. When the app matches support to what you take, it sends medicine names alone — never who you are — and the server keeps nothing.
Photos are not kept
A photograph of a label is read for its text and discarded. It is never stored and never seen by a person.
Where it stops
And what it will never do.
An app that explains medicines has to be clear about where it stops. PlainScript helps you understand what you have been prescribed. It cannot tell you what to do about it, because it knows nothing about you.
- It does not diagnose anything, or tell you what is wrong with you.
- It never tells you to start, stop or change a medicine, and never suggests a dose.
- It cannot tell you a combination is safe. It can tell you which combinations are worth asking about.
- It does not replace the leaflet in the box, your pharmacist, or your GP.
Educational information only. Not medical advice. Always read the patient information leaflet and ask a pharmacist or GP if you are unsure. In an emergency call 999; for urgent advice call 111.
Know what you are taking.
PlainScript is piloting with pharmacies across the UK. If you would like it in yours, or just want a walkthrough, email us — a real person replies.