Community Pharmacies In Crisis

[Sparklingsunshine]

I spotted this in the Guardian and thought it might be of interest. I'm currently without one of my meds which has been subject to supply issues since December. Mine isnt essential however. Has anyone else been affected?

theguardian.com/commentisfr...

[HealthStarDust]

From 2021-2022 one of my medications was out of stock for a whole year.

This has been happening across a whole host of medications since brexit.

[Sparklingsunshine in reply to HealthStarDust]

I read the comments on the article and they are illuminating. There are worldwide shortages of certain drugs or raw materials, so its an issue facing other countries, some Guardian readers are ex pats and live in the EU.

People living in Portugal and France have both had issues with delays, items out of stock etc. But Brexit plus the low price the NHS pays for drugs has been the straw that broke the camel's back I think. There are a combination of factors that have led to the sorry pass we find ourselves in.

Drug companies are not charities, they are in it for the money so of course they will sell to the highest bidder.

[Milkyway88]

One of mine was out of stock for several weeks. My Levo brand suddenly changed and they say they have to accept what is sent.

I gave up at a local pharmacy where there were 6 people dispensing and one on the counter dealing with everything. The pharmacy was advertising a large range of services which it was struggling to deliver. The queue was in the car park. This is a relatively small concern, attached to a GP surgery.

What’s going on here? It’s been like this at every pharmacy since Covid.

[arTistapple]

I am supposed to be (very reluctantly) on some fairly heavy duty drugs for heart. However I can’t get through to my GP to actually prescribe them. Filled in their triage forms and left message on the prescription line. I am already between a rock and a hard place between the cardiologist and GP because GP decided she would not prescribe before heart tests were complete- on the face of it pretty sensible and I agreed. Cardio extremely unhappy.

However being aware of the problem highlighted by yourself, even my present prescription concerns me. How long could we survive (and no doubt survive even more unhappily than we do now)?

Another concern of being on heavy duty heart drugs, if they are literally suddenly withdrawn, that can have terrible consequences. I did this many years ago because they were not helping my symptoms and giving me ‘No life’ - not knowing I was most likely hypothyroid then. A steep gradient between extreme discomfort to death. I am thinking I would be better off not starting them than to have them suddenly withdrawn under these scary circumstances.

[Justine_Case]

I work in a Pharmacy, and many drugs have been affected by shortages over the last few years.

We have customers who have travelled to various Pharmacies to source their drug with no success.

We have been told by both suppliers and our management, that the UK no longer has the bargaining power for the 'affordable drugs' since Brexit, and the rest of the EU is prioritised in this regard.

I am not sure if this is correct, but can certainly tell the prices for a lot of the drugs has risen considerably.

Also since and during Covid, there has been a slow down in the manufacturing of some drugs, plus a shortage of some raw materials which further contributes to the problem.

I do think the Government should intervene, some of these drugs are life saving and I think this should be considered an emergency.

[gabkad in reply to Justine_Case]

Globalization and offshoring of manufacture is also a factor. A lot of the raw materials are manufactured in India and China. During Covid especially everything was disrupted. I had a long conversation with a woman chemical engineer who works for Teva. They receive ingredients from drug manufacturing plants in India that when tested need to be dumped.

Even though the FDA is supposed to monitor quality control, it's still not sufficiently reliable to ensure that products meet specification. Sometimes drugs need to be recalled from pharmacies by which time patients are already in possession.

In addition there is a hot war going on in Ukraine. Whenever there's a war like this going on, invariably there are shortages of those drugs used for surgery and recovery of the wounded. During the Iraq 'war', there were shortages of some antibiotics and anaesthetics.

I read the Guardian article and find that if a person with Addison's cannot obtain hydrocortisone then the situation is truly dire. After Boris Johnson's pals ran off with hundreds of billions of pounds squandered during Covid, it's no wonder the system is failing today.

[GHHR]

There’s another issue rarely mentioned. Waste. If you no longer need a drug, you can return it to the pharmacy. As far as I know, the packets are destroyed even if in date/unopened. Shouldn’t they be relabelled and reused?

With Levothyroxine my scripts are free, but items eg. aspirin, are cheap but put on prescription. I pay for them separately. There must be a better way to run the system - it’s either get all free as in parts of the UK or pay almost £10/item. We all know there’s waste in the NHS generally and it’s on its knees. When my Dad died, boxes of unused pads/catheters were refused by the NHS but gratefully taken by the hospice…Why is this allowed to continue?

[TSH110 in reply to GHHR]

I presume it’s because it can no longer be guaranteed which could have clinical implications as you don’t know how it’s been stored etc I did also wonder if it could be open to corruption but not sure quite how but it will be .

Seems it’s done in the States and Greece and there are discussions as to its feasibility here.

pharmaceutical-journal.com/...

If pharmacies can’t cope now how they also become drug recycling centres I really dont know. Trouble is as a nation we are so selfish and mean we want a top rate health system for a bottom rate of investment, there’s even talk of getting rid of NI, I presume to completely privatise health care, which might suit some who have the cash, it most certainly rings alarm bells for me. But we have foolishly believed we can get something for nothing and now we are seeing the results of penny pinching for decades. Radio 4 did a shocking piece about corridor wards at A&E I mean it was frightful. Unfortunately investment is needed to rectify things so that long term it will improve the things that are going wrong now, but people simply don’t want to pay for it. Social care for the elderly reform what’s happened to that ? The silence is deafening. We are refusing to face the truth and just moaning about what we have brought upon ourselves - the mindset needs to change and the concept of actions having consequences taken on board. We might move forward then. I’m not holding my breath tho.

[Enuffisenuf in reply to GHHR]

The district nurses stockpiled dressings, saline and expensive emollients (3 x 1kg buckets unopened) at my father in laws place. When he eventually went into a home they refused the lot despite being unopened and for his use.

What sort of system allows this to happen? The DNs should have brought what was needed to each appointment. How were they allowed to check out so much stuff in one go!

We had 4 zimmer frames and 5 walking sticks, because they sent him home with one after every hospital admission. They wouldn't take any of them back. Made us very cross.