Prescription Drugs: Shortages

Patients should not be required to pay privately for medicines that are prescribed to them on the National Health Service. Where supply disruption occurs, the Department has policies in place to ensure patients continue to have access to NHS prescriptions.

Pharmacies have a legal obligation to dispense all valid NHS prescriptions presented to them. Where a pharmacy is unable to supply a particular medicine promptly, in these instances, professional guidance states that they should talk to the patient to discuss the possible options available to them, which can include:

• offering to contact the patient’s prescriber to jointly consider whether another suitable brand or medicine is available to be prescribed; and

• checking whether the medicine is available at another pharmacy.

Alongside this, we have Serious Shortage Protocols (SSPs), which are a tool to manage and mitigate medicine shortages. An SSP enables community pharmacists to supply a specified alternative in accordance with a protocol rather than a prescription, without needing another prescription.

Medicine supply chains are complex, global, and highly regulated and there are a number of reasons why supply can be disrupted, many of which are not specific to the United Kingdom and outside of Government control, including manufacturing difficulties, access to raw materials, sudden demand spikes, or distribution issues and regulatory issues. There are approximately 14,000 licensed medicines and the overwhelming majority are in good supply.

While we cannot always prevent supply issues from occurring, we have a range of well-established processes and tools to manage them when they arise and mitigate risks to patients, including those with auto-immune and muscle weakness conditions. These include close and regular engagement with suppliers, use of alternative strengths or forms of a medicine to allow patients to remain on the same product, expediting regulatory procedures, sourcing unlicensed imports from abroad, adding products to the restricted exports and hoarding list, use of SSPs, and issuing National Health Service communications to provide management advice and information on the issue to healthcare professionals, including pharmacists, so they can advise and support their patients.