Pharmacy
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will ensure that pharmacies can access high-cost, short shelf-life medications rapidly.
Answered by Karin Smyth
In the United Kingdom, community pharmacies are private businesses which provide National Health Services, and therefore, for the majority of medicines which they supply in accordance with a prescription, they have their own buying arrangements. Not all manufacturers supply to all wholesalers and not all pharmacies use the same wholesalers, so there may be some specific manufacturer’s products that a pharmacy may not easily be able to source.
Professional guidance advises that where a pharmacy is unable to supply a medicine promptly, if they have established there is not a shortage, then they should talk to the patient to discuss the possible options available to them. These can include:
- offering to contact the patient’s prescriber to jointly consider whether another suitable brand or medicine is available; and
- checking whether the medicine is available at another pharmacy.
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