Department of Health and Social Care: Managing a robust and resilient supply of medicines (11 August 2025)

Summary

While at any one time the vast majority of medicines are in good supply, medicines shortages continue to present challenges to patient care at a global scale. This paper sets out the actions being taken by the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England to protect patients from medicines shortages.

Content

This policy paper has three main objectives:

• To provide greater transparency of the supply chains the UK relies on and the action the Government is taking to protect patients from medicines shortages when they occur.
• To outline the steps they plan to take to further enhance processes for mitigating medicine shortages and to strengthen long-term resilience. These include:
  • tangible measures around earlier identification of potential disruption
  • enhanced reliability and timeliness of supply across the whole supply chain
  • improving communication and guidance to different sectors
  • strong international partnerships.
• To invite all partners across the health system and medicines supply chain to continue to work with the Government and the NHS to co-design and provide the changes needed to ensure a consistent and reliable supply of medicines to patients.

Related reading on the hub

There are a number of resources available on the hub on how medication shortages are affecting staff and patients, including:

• Medication supply issues: A pharmacist’s perspective - a interview with Darren Powell, Clinical Lead for NHS England and Community Pharmacist
• Medicines Shortages Policy: Solutions for empty shelves - a report from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society
• Medicines shortages: minimising the impact on patients - a blog by Catherine Picton
• All-Party Parliamentary Group on Pharmacy inquiry into medicines shortages in England