Almost half of adults in the UK have struggled to get medicine they have been prescribed – and more people blame Brexit than anything else for the situation, research shows. Forty-nine per cent of people said they had had trouble getting a prescription dispensed over the past two years, the period during which supply problems have increased sharply. Drug shortages are so serious that one in 12 Britons were unable to find the medication they needed, despite asking a number of pharmacies.
The survey of 2,028 people representative of the population, undertaken by Opinium for the British Generic Manufacturers Association (BGMA), found that: One in 12 people (8%) have gone without a medication altogether because it was impossible to obtain. Thirty-one per cent found the drug they needed was out of stock at their pharmacy. Twenty-three per cent of pharmacies did not have enough of the medication available.
When asked why shortages were so common, more cited issues involving the UK leaving the EU (36%) than inflation (33%) or global conflict and instability (26%). “Shortages are deeply worrying for patients’ physical health, alongside the stress of not knowing if an essential medicine will be available,” said Mark Samuels, the chief executive of the BGMA, which represents firms that produce the generic – or off-patent – drugs, which account for 80% of all the drugs the NHS uses across the UK. “Several factors are contributing to the problem and the Brexit agreement is .
