An 80-year-old patient from Lincolnshire, whose medication is in critically short supply, says he has to drive hundreds of miles to find it. Phil Emmett needs Creon to digest food, and his medications are limited. He has an alternative prescription for Pancrex, which he should take 16 times a day, but he is taking only one pill because he has only two days’ worth of supplies. Reducing his medication has left him in pain, unable to eat as usual, and afraid of becoming malnourished. Creon, together with Pancrex and Nutrizine, is prescribed to patients with pancreatic conditions, including cancer and cystic fibrosis.
Mr. Emmett claims that obtaining medication when residing in a rural area is difficult and has been forced to drive hundreds of miles in search of supplies. He says he would travel 100 miles if he visited five chemists. The Department of Health said it had “inherited ongoing global supply problems” with medicines and was “working with industry, the NHS and others in the supply chain to mitigate the risk to patients”.
Irene Boateng, the pharmacist at Bardney Pharmacy, stated that she had a list of 18 medicines that were out of stock. She said that Brexit, supply chain difficulties, and a shortage of raw materials were among the reasons for the lack of supplies. If medication was unavailable, it could take a long time to track down an alternative, and face an added cost if the alternative medication was more expensive.
The problems Mr. Emmett and others with pancreatic conditions are facing are widespread, and the National Pharmacy Association has described the supply of medications in the UK as “grossly underfunded” and has asked the government to appoint a medicine shortage specialist to handle what it describes as a “growing and complex crisis.” The Department of Health stated that supply issues with Creon were affecting countries across Europe and were caused by limited availability of raw materials and constraints on manufacturing capacity
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