Brexit a key factor in worst UK medicine shortages in four years, report says | Health

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/mar/22/brexit-key-factor-worst-uk-drug-shortages-in-four-years

by peakedtooearly

27 comments

  1. Is it? Isn’t there a global shortage?

    Yes yes there is this why people don’t believe the media propaganda anymore!

  2. I work in pharmaceutical manufacturing and I been screaming this since brexit started.

    It’s not just that, but routine inspections of UK manufacturers didn’t take place in the lead up to brexit as all the regulator (MHRA) was caught in the drafting and redrafting of rules of manufacturing based on all the political changes that were happening.

    After that, all experienced inspectors were let go.

    I have been saying that the risk profile of UK manufacturing has increased. Most manufacturers have only had one inspection since 2018, including the one I work for. I wasn’t surprised at all by the boots recall that happened [recently. ](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy7xn5lyxemo)

  3. Hate Brexit, but our Ozempic availability has been one of the cheapest and widespread in the world to the extent it’s reducing the obesity rate already. That’s made in Denmark, so what’s the issue with other meds?

  4. Brexiteers said that this wouldn’t happen, or that if it did it would be worth it.

    How has it been worth it?

  5. > Brexit a key factor in worst UK medicine shortages in four years

    Brexit a key factor in worst UK _ four years, insert blank as necessary.

  6. Medical background here – and I honestly considered setting up as a medicine smuggler following Brexit.

    And part of why I left the medical field was the stress caused by me trying to get end-of-life medications to my palliative patients, only managing it because both I and some friendly pharmacists would *cough* bend *cough* some unhelpful legislation.

  7. The Guardian seems to have an article everyday about something relating to Brexit. It sells. 

    I think people need to remember that the negatives of leaving the union and failure of government to prepare are two different things.

  8. And yet Brexit enabled us to be the first in the world to jab COVID vaccines, and a full three months before the EU (who even tried to blockade our factories in Europe to take the vaccines for themselves).

    Then of course in the current situation we are essentially leading Europe on defense. This is what the UK used to be like before we were swallowed up into the EU with everything subject to votes, watering down, vetos, and other assorted bureaucracy which no one in this country voted to be a part of (Maestricht treaty ).

  9. So many Bots appear in these threads whenever Brexit keywords are used.

  10. They’ve had 9 years to sort out there supply chain.

  11. The National Pharmacy Association voiced alarm earlier this month about “a growing crisis in medicine supply”. All 500 of the pharmacies it surveyed said they could not dispense a prescription at least once a day because drugs were unavailable.

    Be sure to thank your local Brexiteer. Never let them forget the damage they’ve caused.

  12. There’s reports of medicine shortages affecting Europe going back over 2 years, would remaining in the eu have made us immune to what’s affecting every other member then?

  13. Brexiters in the comments fuming that “it’s happening everywhere” when the article clearly states that we’re in the worst position in the G7 and the fall is due to declining EU imports

    >United Nations trade data, which Dayan and his colleagues analysed, shows that the UK “once again has the lowest rise in imports of medicines of all G7 countries since 2010”.

    >“The total value [of imports] has fallen by almost 20% since 2015, the year before the EU referendum, in cash terms – an indication of how medicine supply chains have shifted away from the UK,” the report says, with “little sign of a stable recovery since”.

    >HM Revenue and Customs data shows there has been “a decline [in imports] focused clearly on imports from the EU, adding to the evidence that new trade barriers related to Brexit are a likely explanation”.

    It’s almost like the EU makes 1/3 of the global medicine supply and erecting huge trade barriers with them was a terrible idea…who would have thought

  14. It’s strange because I thought most drugs are manufactured in India and just imported?

  15. I’ve been off my adhd meds for nearly a year because the emotional and physical turmoil of going on and off the pills due to constant shortages (and you’re supposed to titrate on and off or when changing doses) just became too much for me. I dread to think what it’s like for people who need medicine for more life threatening conditions.

  16. I just hope it’s the boomers who suffer the most from this. But, hey, they got their country back!

  17. One day we’ll see one of these benefits I’ve heard talk about. Hopefully before I die.

  18. Obviously, where do they think we were getting our medicine from before?

  19. You pay people shit , treat them like ass and they don’t have a job to go to at the end of their training. 

    What do you want them to do, bend over and say thank you?.

  20. ironically it will hurt the elderly who were the biggest group that voted for it

  21. I’ve helped a few family members out with situations where UK pharmacies were not able to fill their NHS prescriptions.

    In every case, the medication was available at reasonable price from reputable online pharmacies in other countries and arrived in the post safely after a few days.

    Obviously this doesn’t help if your medication is a controlled substance (eg ADHD) but for most stuff, most of the time, the supposed “shortages” are essentially a deliberate policy choice by HMG.

    This isn’t a “brexit” issue, it’s a combination of “british government is inept” and “NHS refuses to pay market prices so is back of the queue for everything”.

  22. The day after Brexit occurred I said this would happen on the UK Politics Reddit and I got blasted over it and here were my reasons (I’m someone with a lot of health issues so I unfortunately rely on meds).

    * The Tory government at the time knew that the price of drugs would increase due to levies imposed for importing from EU nations (paperwork & customs charges) but because drugs costs are fixed at set prices with manufacturers and there is no room for overhead, and tories were unwilling to budge on giving more purchasing power, pharmacist businesses would be buying drugs at a loss.
    * Because we are no longer in the EU, importing to the UK became a fucking mess. Everyone remembers the scenes in dover with lorries stacked tens of miles back with depots jammed while they waited to be processed thanks to the governments “can’t be fucked attitude” to deal with our side of Brexit in the early stages. This meant that JIT (just in time) became more fragile and in some cases broke and systems like getting deliveries when you needed them became more problematic.
    * Because doing business in the UK is that bit more expensive and the profit margins are that much lower, fewer drug companies will want to do business with the UK (as we won’t pay more for our stuff) so our options are more restricted. This means we have to go further afield to get drugs (relying on even longer deliveries) or we do without.
    * The UK has not to my knowledge invested that heavily in generic drug branding on the scale that it should have and so we are heavily dependant upon third-parties for pretty much everything at the price they set (and yes some of those drugs are expensive to account for the R&D costs that make sense but the government doesn’t help itself in terms of its contract deals).

  25. I take adhd meds and its coming up for a year on me having problems getting my meds

    I initially tried Elvanse then was swapped to Concerta due to shortages and then the concerta shortages hit and I’ve been on a generic script for a good while

    Like I’ve mananaged but its so stressful

  26. No excrement Sherlock newsflash it’s light in the daytime and dark in the night

  27. Bound to happen when Europhile politicians were put in charge of the Brexit negotiations.

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