PHARMACIES WARN OF IMMINENT MEDICINE SHORTAGE


Community Pharmacy NI has warned of an imminent risk to the supply of essential medicines in Northern Ireland.


Briefing MLAs at an All-Party Group (APG) meeting at Stormont on Tuesday 3 February, representatives from CPNI advised of a growing shortage of many common medicines including the painkiller, co-codamol 30/500mg* which is likely to extend for several months.


In Northern Ireland, approximately 50,000 packs, equating to around 5 million tablets of co-codamol are dispensed each month to a population of fewer than two million people. As things stand, community pharmacies may be forced to ration supplies of medicines related to shortages, potentially affecting on average 50 to 100 patients per pharmacy so that people have some supply and do not run out of vital medicines.


Community Pharmacy NI highlighted that this is not an isolated example - with another shortage affecting specific low-dose, dissolvable aspirin used primarily as an anti-platelet medicine for patients at risk of stroke or heart attack. When questioned by MLAs on the potential impact for Northern Ireland, Community Pharmacy NI confirmed that community pharmacies here are typically trying to source stock for over 100 common medicine lines in short supply.


While the current shortages are driven by global manufacturing and supply chain constraints, the organisation stressed that these issues represent significant medicines security and supply concerns in Northern Ireland with potentially direct implications for patient safety and consequential pressures for GPs, out-of-hours services and other parts of the health system. Gerard Greene, Chief Executive of Community Pharmacy NI said, “Today’s discussion made clear that community pharmacy in Northern Ireland is operating under sustained and increasing pressure. The gap between medicine costs and reimbursement is widening, and pharmacies here are also struggling to pay medicine wholesaler bills and receive sufficient supply of many common medicines to meet patient need.


“The supply issue sees community pharmacies working intensively to source medicines, often under severe constraints. We have pharmacy teams reporting back to us daily that they are seeing growing numbers of other commonly prescribed medicines also in short supply. All of this is taking place while pharmacy teams try to support patients who are understandably keen to get the medicines they need.


40 pharmacyinfocus.co.uk


PHARMACY SUSTAINABILITY


The APG on Community Pharmacy has met to address escalating concerns about the sustainability of pharmacy services and the resilience of the medicines supply chain in Northern Ireland.


Members heard that while medicines supply disruption is a UK-wide issue, it is more acute in Northern Ireland and is now directly affecting patients. This follows increasing reports of reduced availability across a range of commonly prescribed medicines, including treatments used for long-term condition management, such as Co-codamol 30/500mg, aspirin 75mg and propranolol.


(L-R) Turlough Hamill, Gerard Greene and Marie Smith, Community Pharmacy NI; Danny Donnelly MLA.


“We are appealing to the public to be patient with pharmacy teams as they try to source medicines, and we are appealing once again to the Minister to prioritise support for the sector so that pharmacies can pay medicine wholesalers. This does not involve finding new funding for the sector, but rather to remove clawback which reduced the payments pharmacies received last year for medicines dispensed by £23m.


“The stability of the medicines supply chain, while it is a UK wide issue, is of particular concern to us locally because of Northern Ireland’s small market and additional logistical costs compared to GB.


“We have raised these concerns with the Health Minister and are calling on the Minister and the Northern Ireland Executive to work with the UK Government to strengthen medicines security and supply for Northern Ireland, including ensuring that medicine stock is appropriately ring-fenced, so patients continue to receive the medicines they rely on.


“If this is not addressed, there is a real risk that Northern Ireland will become a lower-priority market for medicine wholesalers, with serious implications for patient safety, continuity of care and the resilience of the wider health system.” Community Pharmacy NI are advising strongly against patients self-selecting alternative medicines or altering doses without professional guidance, as this may be clinically inappropriate and, in some cases, harmful.


Community Pharmacies in Northern Ireland dispense millions of packs of commonly prescribed medicines each year and even relatively small interruptions in supply can have a rapid and disproportionate impact on patients, pharmacy teams and local health services.


Community pharmacy representatives have warned that without urgent intervention Northern Ireland is at risk of facing more frequent and more severe disruption in the weeks ahead. Members have expressed serious concern about the impact on patients and the wider health service. Where medicines cannot be sourced in the usual way, patients may face delays, receive interim or reduced supplies or be referred for alternative treatments. This places significant additional workload on pharmacies and increases pressure on GP practices, out-of-hours services and other parts of the system.


The APG is calling on the Department of Health to treat this as an urgent patient safety and system resilience issue and to set out, without delay, a clear plan to stabilise community pharmacy funding and cashflow, so pharmacies can continue to secure medicines for patients; and arrangements to reduce the operational burden created by shortages, including faster, more practical mechanisms for switching to clinically appropriate alternatives when supply fails.


The members of the APG have made it clear that community pharmacy is not an “optional extra” in the health service: it is a frontline service. Failure to act now risks avoidable harm to patients and escalating pressure across the entire system. Chair of the All Party Group on Community Pharmacy, Danny Donnelly MLA said: “Today’s warnings about a sharp deterioration in medicine availability, significant medicine price increases and pharmacies in Northern Ireland struggling to pay medicine wholesalers is very concerning.


“Medicines are such a vital part of the lives of everyone across our population and the Minister needs to do all he can to support pharmacies to be able to get the medicines patients are prescribed. It is imperative that he recognises the severity of this issue and works immediately with the local community pharmacy sector to reduce the impact and risks to patients.”


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