Severely mentally ill patients are suffering because pharmacists are not allowed to write prescriptions under current law, top UK chemists group warns

The Government is sending severely mentally ill patients 'from pillar to post' for vital drugs because pharmacists are not allowed to write prescriptions, says the top UK chemists group.

An antipsychotic drug for patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder is in short supply.

And health officials expect the tablet, quetiapine, which is also given to people with depression, to be missing from pharmacy shelves until September.

It is just one of dozens of crucial medicines that have been hard to access since the Covid pandemic, including hormone replacement therapy (HRT), antibiotics and inhalers.

Research suggests that more than half of patients have struggled to have their prescriptions met over the past year.

Under current law, pharmacists can provide their patients with alternative medicine only if the Government has issued a specific exemption for that drug – known as a severe shortage protocol.

But, according to experts, the protocols are issued well after the shortages have begun – meaning pharmacists have to wait weeks, or even months, before they can offer patients alternative drugs.

Now the National Pharmacy Association is urging the Government to end the severe shortage protocol system and allow chemists to decide for themselves when to provide new prescriptions.

'Pharmacists are highly trained healthcare practitioners who should be permitted to use their professional judgment to supply an appropriate alternative medicine in the event of the prescribed version being unavailable,' says Nick Kaye, chairman of the National Pharmacy Association.

'It's crazy to send patients from pillar to post in pursuit of vital medicines when the answer may be right there in the pharmacy.'

While shortages have largely been triggered by increased global demand and manufacturing issues, experts say it is within Government power to ease the crisis.

That is why The Mail on Sunday has launched its End The Drug Shortage Nightmare campaign.

This newspaper is calling on the Government to give pharmacists the power to make substitutions for patients when drugs are out of stock and to force manufacturers to give advance warning of known shortages or face fines.

We also believe there should be a database for patients to check which pharmacies have drugs in stock – and we say all NHS patients should be allowed to use well-stocked hospital pharmacies to source critical medicines.

Since 2022, the Government has been forced to intervene to issue 50 severe shortage protocols – triple the number published in the two years before that.

While some only lasted for weeks, many extended for months and some for more than a year.

The National Pharmacy Association is also urging the Government to take several other measures to tackle the drug shortage crisis.

'To fix this for the long term, the Health Secretary should instigate an end-to-end review of the medicines supply chain to ensure it's fit for the future,' says Mr Kaye.

'Also, we urge the new Government to appoint a Medicine Shortages Tsar to use this opportunity to bring all the relevant bodies together to tackle this growing, complex crisis once and for all.'

The Mail on Sunday has repeatedly asked the new Community Pharmacy Minister Stephen Kinnock about his plans to end the drug shortage crisis. 

However, Mr Kinnock has so far refused to respond.

Instead, a Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: 'While current serious shortage protocols allow pharmacists to supply alternative medicines, we are committed to cutting the red tape and to better use the skills of pharmacists.

'That includes making prescribing part of the services delivered by community pharmacists.'