aggression<\/a> when medicines were unavailable or delayed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nSupply issues have also worsened, with 80% of pharmacy owners encountering daily wholesaler shortages and 26% reporting daily supply chain failures.<\/p>\n
Most (74%) pharmacy owners reported that their staff were having to spend longer than ever before on medicines procurement, with 39% spending 1-2 hours daily sourcing alternative medicines. More than 90% of pharmacy staff reported increased workload and stress because of supply problems.<\/p>\n
Patient Safety at Risk<\/p>\n
CPE chief executive Janet Morrison said the survey showed that \u201cas medicine supply issues remain a daily reality across the country, the risk to patient health has become a distressing new normal.\u201d The survey results \u201csuggest a system that is stuck at breaking point,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Olivier Picard, chair of the NPA, which represents over 6000 independent community pharmacies, said that staff were \u201cat the sharp end of medicines shortages\u201d and often forced to turn patients away despite having safe alternatives in stock.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is madness to send someone back to their GP to get a prescription changed,\u201d Picard said. \u201cIt risks a patient either delaying taking vital medication or forgoing it altogether, which poses a clear risk to patient safety.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Picard endorsed the CPE’s call for the government to give greater flexibility to pharmacists to use their professional judgment to supply an appropriate alternative medication when the prescribed version is unavailable.<\/p>\n
Louise Ansari, chief executive of Healthwatch England, also supported giving pharmacists more autonomy. She said allowing substitutions with patient consent \u2014 where clinically safe \u2014 could ease pressure on patients and services.<\/p>\n
\u201cProviding clear guidance to the public on what steps to take if their medication is unavailable is crucial,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr Sheena Meredith is an established medical writer, editor, and consultant in healthcare communications, with extensive experience writing for medical professionals and the general public. She is qualified in medicine and in law and medical ethics.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Continuing problems with the supply of medicines have become a \u201cdistressing new normal\u201d for community pharmacies and patients,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":35876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[25001,29443,210,29445,29448,29447,29446,1060,29444,29441,565,27557,4644,3470,29438,29440,29442,376,29439,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-35875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-antibiotics","9":"tag-drug-shortages","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-health-care-access","12":"tag-health-care-services","13":"tag-health-services","14":"tag-health-services-accessibility","15":"tag-medication","16":"tag-medication-shortages","17":"tag-national-health-service","18":"tag-nhs","19":"tag-patient-safety","20":"tag-stress","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-uk-national-health-service","23":"tag-uk-nhs","24":"tag-uk-site-content-united-kingdom-site-content","25":"tag-united-kingdom","26":"tag-united-kingdom-national-health-service","27":"tag-united-states","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114790520954188873","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}