The government should appoint an independent expert as a ‘medicine supply Tsar’ to tackle medicine shortages, the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has said.

This comes as a recent survey by the NPA and YouGov found that three in 10 patients have struggled to get their medicines in the last year.

Some 28% of UK adults were unable to collect a prescription from their local pharmacy due to medicine shortages.

Several patients reported experiencing this multiple times in the last year, with 6% saying they couldn’t collect their medicine three to four times and 5% experienced this five times or more.

Of those who had experienced issues, 32% said it had impacted their health, with 7% saying it had a ‘great deal’ of impact and 25% saying it had a ‘fair deal’.

Paul Rees, NPA chief executive, called the statistics ‘incredibly worrying’.

‘Although for some, a medicine shortage is frustrating and inconvenient, for others it can be potentially life threatening and have a drastic impact on how a patient can live their life,' he said.

He pointed to recent shortages relating to Creon, which can be used to help those living with cystic fibrosis digest food.

He also highlighted the impact of shortages on ‘already stretched community pharmacies, who have to pay inflated prices for medicines in short supply, spend hours trying to find supplies and sometimes face the heartbreaking situation of having to turn patients away’.

To tackle the issue ‘once and for all’, an independent expert should be appointed, the NPA suggested.

This ‘medicine supply Tsar’ could have technical medicines supply knowledge and bring together a wide range of industry organisations to tackle the ‘complex’ problem of medicine shortages, the NPA said.

And they should investigate ‘the robustness UK’s medicine supply chain’ and make the UK ‘more competitive in the global medicines market’.

Recent analysis by the NPA suggested that medicine shortage warnings had tripled in the last two years.

And in Community Pharmacy England's 2024 Pharmacy Pressures Survey, 72% of pharmacy teams said they experienced medicine supply issues ‘multiple times a day’.

Eight in 10 pharmacy team members also reported that medicine shortages are putting patients’ health at risk.

The government announced today that Karin Smyth, MP for Bristol South, will take responsibility for medicines regulation, pricing and supply, as well as prescribing, in her role as minister of state for health (secondary care).