Stock shortages placing ‘ridiculous burden’ on pharmacists

Stock shortages are continuing to place a "ridiculous and unnecessary burden" on pharmacists and wholesalers, the British Association of Pharmaceutical Wholesalers (BAPW) has said.

A BAPW survey last year compared  the quantity of certain branded medicines that wholesalers were able to supply with the volume of orders they had received for those drugs.

In some cases wholesalers were able to supply against less than 10 per cent of the orders over the three-month survey period.

Under normal circumstances, orders from pharmacists are fulfilled by wholesalers immediately, at first ordering, over 90 per cent of the time, the BAPW said.

But only two medicines in the list BAPW surveyed, all of which had appeared on PSNC's list of medicines in short supply, achieved a 65 per cent fulfilment ratio.

The vast majority of the medicines surveyed were also only supplied once they had been ordered at least three times by the pharmacist, dispensing doctor, or hospital, the association said.

BAPW executive director Martin Sawer said the results were "much worse" than last year.

"There's a ridiculous and unnecessary burden on wholesalers and on pharmacists in terms of the time they're spending re-ordering these things without success," he told C+D.

Mr Sawer called for the government and MHRA to tackle the problem by providing stronger guidance as to when patients should be able to get their medicines.