European wholesalers have backed their UK counterparts' calls for a patient service obligation to tackle medicine shortages, warning that the UK faces worse supply problems than other countries.

The European Association of Pharmaceutical Full-line Wholesalers (GIRP) had received reports of generic medicines shortages in the UK, which it had not received from other European countries, said GIRP director general Monika Derecque-Pois in an exclusive interview with C+D last week (June 2).

Both Germany and France have a public service obligation in their national legislation, which places a responsibility on manufacturers to supply wholesalers and wholesalers to supply medicines to pharmacists. These were "two strong reference points" that the UK should use when dealing with shortages, said GIRP deputy director general Martin Fitzgerald. 

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	But the UK seemed resistant to all forms of regulatory restrictions, Ms Derecque-Pois said, adding that GIRP supported last month's call by the British Association of Pharmaceutical Wholesalers (BAPW) for "ground rules" to be put in place to end shortages in the UK.

An obligation for all supply chain members to provide a sufficient supply of medicines could address the "perverse outcomes" in the existing system, BAPW executive director Martin Sawer said in an opinion piece for C+D last month.

However, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry said the obligation would "do little" to resolve the problem and Independent Pharmacy Federation chair Fin McCaul said that it would not address the financial pressures that were causing people to export medicines.

Community pharmacist Kevin Western warned that pharmacists would still be blamed by patients if the patient service obligation failed.

"We will end up carrying higher quantities of more expensive stock to cover the manufactures [and] wholesalers and will be blamed for hoarding when it works," he posted on C+D's website last month.

C+D has launched a petition as part of its Sort Out Stocks campaign, calling for the government to accept that prescription medicine shortages are still a problem for both pharmacists and patients in the UK. Pharmacists can back the campaign and sign the petition here.