Darren

The amount and details that pharmacies receive about shortages can vary greatly. Sometimes a manufacturer can have issues with their production, or raw material issues, or products can be withdrawn causing similar products to become exhausted as demand switches to them. These tend to be highlight grabbing big news stories, so we get the details. Other shortage seem to have no explanation. There are sources of information we can use to try and determine when supply might return, but often it can be as vague as "the first part of the year". There are lots of factors that feed into the shortages, a big one being, the UK isn't a profitable market for some manufacturers, and the demands for medicines outside the UK. What could we do better? Share information between local pharmacies, but there is no formal mechanism for this, and it's reliant on the professionalism and goodwill of pharmacy teams to coordinate. Sadly chasing "stock" and trying to manage the needs of patients takes up significant amounts of time of the pharmacy and GP teams as we try and coordinate replacement prescriptions.

Let me start this by confirming I am a pharmacist, and I practice in community pharmacy (high street chemist to some people). I have a daughter who lives away but is on treatment for ADHD. I think I've drilled into her the importance of ordering her medicines on time and to never assume the items will be in stock. Up till now, she has been lucky in getting her medicines without too much of an issue. This month was different - her regular pharmacy couldn't obtain her regular medication, and unfortunately pharmacists don't have any legal abilities to substitute or change brands or strengths. She rang around a number of pharmacies but none had any supplies. Luckily she had a week's supply left. I could see that the pharmacy I work in 'might' be able to get stock from the wholesalers they use, but I needed to get the prescription from her regular pharmacy, and over to me - not impossible as it was an electronic prescription - but a bit of a faff. Then if I could obtain and dispense, I'd need to drive an hour and a half to take the medicine to her. I would of course done this as A) I'm her father and B) I understand the massive impact on her ability to function, and do the job she loves would crumble away without the medicines. Luckily, I have a network of good pharmacy friends, and I put a call out to see if anyone in her town had the medicine in stock. Kindly someone responded, and said they thought they had some in stock, and would check on Saturday morning when the opened. So my daughter travelled across the town, via a couple of bus changes to get to the pharmacy and collect her much needed medicines. I am a pharmacist, with a understanding of how the system works, and a network I can informally utilise. We were lucky. But what about patients who don't have this, or anyone to advocate for them in this respect. Medicines shortages aren't just an inconvenience for some, it affects their quality of life, both mentally and physically.