The Department of Health and Social Care’s (DH) response to a House of Lords report on medicines security “fails to address the main challenge” facing the supply of drugs in primary care, the CCA has said.
CCA chief executive Malcolm Harrison said the response, published on April 15, “does provide some solutions for dealing with shortages in primary care once they have occurred” but “does not address how to build longer-term resilience in the supply chain, to prevent shortages in the first place”.
It follows the House of Lords report in February finding that the government is “not proactive” enough in preventing drug shortages, and that medicine supply issues “are not prioritised as the potential national security issue that they represent”.
“Uncomfortable truth”
Harrison added that the “very low prices the government sets for generic medicines” mean that “many pharmacies are now supplying NHS prescriptions at a loss”.
“Over 1,500 pharmacy closures in the past decade stand as testimony to this uncomfortable truth,” he said.
He warned that the UK is “seen globally as an unattractive market for manufactures to sell medicines to”.
Read more: Medicine shortages are ‘national security issue’, says House of Lords
And he stressed that “to ensure the security of medicines supply in the UK, the government must make additional and sustained investment across the whole of the UK’s medicines supply chain”.
“This includes funding to stabilise the community pharmacy network and investment in generic medicines pricing,” he added.
Read more: Address medicine shortages by supporting pharmacies, urges MP
The DH’s response to the report notes the House of Lords’ recommendation that “more could be done to influence domestic manufacture of critical medicines in the UK and to remove barriers for active pharmaceutical ingredient manufacture”.
The DH said it wants to “ensure that the UK remains a healthy market” - and noted that there is already a “thriving life sciences sector”, with the Life Sciences Sector Plan being supported by “£2 billion in government funding”.
And it stressed that while the UK “imports much of its generic medicines from third countries”, this “does not mean that the government is not supportive of a competitive generics manufacturing sector in the UK”.
Read more: NHS England ‘really worried’ about med supplies, chief exec warns
“Improve communications”
The House of Lords report said it is “unacceptable that community pharmacies and hospitals may only discover medicines shortages when they are directly affected”.
It urged the DH to take “steps to improve communications regarding shortages” by “providing information in a more timely manner” and “ensuring prescribers and secondary care have an up-to-date understanding of the current medicines supply situation and relevant guidance”.
In its response, the DH acknowledged that “communication with community pharmacies and healthcare professionals is essential to help them support their patients in the best possible way”.
Read more: ‘Concerning’: Drug price concessions highest in three years
It comes after the CCA this week hosted a reception in parliament to discuss medicine supply chain issues with industry stakeholders.
Labour MP Sadik Al-Hassan, who spoke at the event, said drug shortages have become a “chronic structural challenge for the NHS and for pharmacy” and called on the government “to sustain and strengthen” community pharmacy.
