Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will ensure that pharmacies can access high-cost, short shelf-life medications rapidly.

In the United Kingdom, community pharmacies are private businesses which provide National Health Services, and therefore, for the majority of medicines which they supply in accordance with a prescription, they have their own buying arrangements. Not all manufacturers supply to all wholesalers and not all pharmacies use the same wholesalers, so there may be some specific manufacturer’s products that a pharmacy may not easily be able to source.

Professional guidance advises that where a pharmacy is unable to supply a medicine promptly, if they have established there is not a shortage, then they should talk to the patient to discuss the possible options available to them. These can include:

• offering to contact the patient’s prescriber to jointly consider whether another suitable brand or medicine is available; and
• checking whether the medicine is available at another pharmacy.