UK drug shortages more than doubled between 2020 and 2023 as Brexit was likely to “significantly weaken” the country’s ability to address supply chain challenges, according to a report published by Nuffield Trust think tank on Thursday.
The study found that pharmaceutical companies issued 1,643 warnings of impending drug shortages in 2023, compared to 648 in 2020 when the UK left the European Union (EU).
Increased shortages, including of essential medicines, such as antibiotics and epilepsy drugs, also led to the government reimbursing pharmacies for buying drugs above their standard cost more frequently. According to “The future for healthcare after Brexit” report, price concessions increased from 20 times a month before 2016 to a peak of 199 times a month at the end of 2022.
While drug stockouts increased in the US and Europe in recent years, the UK faces a higher risk as Brexit has slashed the value of the pound sterling and excluded the UK from EU supply chains.
The report added that shortages were also being exacerbated by changes in demand patterns due to the way doctors prescribed medicines in the UK and cuts to National Health Service (NHS) budgets, Nuffield Trust Brexit Programme Lead Mark Dayan noted.
We know many of the problems are global and relate to fragile chains of imports from Asia, squeezed by COVID-19 shutdowns, inflation and global instability. But exiting the EU has left the UK with several additional problems – products no longer flow as smoothly across the borders with the EU, and in the long term, our struggles to approve as many medicines might mean we have fewer alternatives available.
The report wrote that the UK was slower to approve new medicines than the EU. Of all 2023 approvals, 56 drugs authorised in Europe were later approved in the UK. Eight were not approved, and only four were authorised more promptly.
