Medication collecting system

A medication collecting system, comprising:

• a tray feed station for accumulating a plurality of empty trays for receiving patient-specific medication from at least one dispensing station and supplying the trays to a conveyor line;
• a medication dispensing station disposed along the conveyor line for storing a plurality of different types of oral solid medication and for dispensing the medication in packaged, patient-specific medication dosage-units in accordance with patient-specific prescription information to a patient-specific tray transported by the conveyor line to the dispensing station, the medication dispensing station having:
• a plurality of oral solid medication storage containers, each container having an opening through which the medication is discharged in a controlled manner;
• dispensing apparatus for dispensing oral solid medication from the medication storage containers in patient-specific dosage-units in accordance with the patient-specific prescription information;
• a packaging mechanism for packaging the oral solid medication in separate medication packages formed in a packaging belt, each medication package representing a patient-specific medication dosage-unit;
• a cutting mechanism for cutting the package belt into predetermined discrete sections, each section including at least one medication package in accordance with the patient-specific prescription information;
• a stacking mechanism for stacking the cut package belt sections for each patient;
• and
• a bundling mechanism for bundling the stacked package belt sections;
• and
• a tray recovery station for recovering and sorting the trays containing the patient-specific package belt sections discharged from the medication dispensing station.