Cost of paracetamol

[prunus]

This morning whilst collecting my husband's prescription I needed to buy paracetemol for him too. The cost for 30tablets was £3. I compared this to my previous purchase which was 75p for 32tablets. So now they are costing over four times more. How can this be justified and who is raking this in? They were under my pharmacy's label unlike the originals. Is this the pharmacist?

[PMRpro Ambassador]

Supply and demand I suspect - when the panic buying was happening the paracetamol also sold out - I imagine because there was mention that ibuprofen was not good for Covid 19.

The very cheap batches of any generic are based on massive bulk buying for large chains for example - Lidl is cheap as chips. But once that is gone you go to the next level and so on. There will be increased demand all over Europe. Haven't looked here but you can only buy painkillers from the pharmacy and they are always full price.

I doubt it is the pharmacist to blame - but they are having to charge you what the suppliers are demanding from them.

[maria40 in reply to PMRpro]

When I last looked in Lidl - just before lockdown - they only had paracetemol plus caffeine - no use to me.

[Nuff1]

Paracetamol comes in three types - capsules, caplets and tablets and priced differently

[linda49]

My husband recently had difficulty getting any paracetamol for my use from our local pharmacy or any of the supermarkets. The pharmacist told my husband that India were the main supplier of paracetamol to the UK and that they had recently stopped exporting their supply in order to have it available for their own citizens during the pandemic. Our pharmacist suggested we ask our GP to put paracetamol on our repeat prescriptions list temporarily and this has been approved by GP. One less thing to worry about.

[Theziggy]

Yip, they have shot up price-wise and still the shelves are usually empty. I would surmise that supermarkets are still buying them for the same price and ramping up the price themselves

[Rosbud in reply to Theziggy]

Our Lidl has them and still the same price ,

Only difference they are only for sale by the till x

[prunus in reply to Rosbud]

If people are being unreasonable that is a sensible place to put them. My son went twice today to our local supermarket for us but came back both times emptyhanded. The queue was so long - he would have had to wait at least an hour and a half.

[Eric48]

My sister lives in France and said that there wasn’t a shortage in her local pharmacy

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to Eric48]

No shortages of anything here in northern Italy either (though gin stocks did cause a few flutters last weeks) - but if she must buy it in the pharmacy it is probably like here: full price.

[prunus in reply to PMRpro]

I did read in today's paper that the price has gone up by 2.6%, but 4 times is not 2.6% in my book! It's too hot for gin here. I went doing some gardening. I had to give it up I was too hot!!!

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to prunus]

NEVER too hot for a G&T A mere 22C in the shade here but over 25C down in the valley. But in the sun is seriously hot here ...

[prunus in reply to PMRpro]

Our temperature is similar. Tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer but on Monday it drops back to about 13 C.

[prunus in reply to Eric48]

I did read that something depended on where a country got the basic ingredients from as to whether there was a problem or not.