EXCLUSIVE: Community pharmacists across the UK are spending eight hours every week trying to alleviate medicines shortages, a snapshot survey by The Pharmacist has suggested.

Sourcing medication is taking time that would otherwise be spent on direct patient care, while the issue is impacting pharmacy teams' wellbeing and relationships with patients and GPs, The Pharmacist has heard.

Our survey of 132 community pharmacists showed, on average, teams were spending eight hours – equivalent to one working day – every week dealing with medicines shortages.

Further analysis showed some 13% of respondents spent more than 20 hours each week alleviating issues around medicines shortages.

Respondents noted that the time taken to source medication varied week to week, depending on whether they were able to obtain the supply needed.

One respondent highlighted that above-tariff costs of drugs also added to time spent sourcing medications.

Another suggested they had to use multiple suppliers as some may be on hold or do not stock certain lines, making the job of obtaining medicines ‘even more challenging’.

Medicine shortages affecting pharmacist wellbeing and relationships with patients and GPs

Community pharmacy owner Ifesi Anyamene said medicines shortages led to the pharmacy team spending more time on the phone, email and on WhatsApp groups trying to solve the issue for patients – an average of eight hours each week, aligning with The Pharmacist's survey findings.

'I devote a lot of time to calling suppliers repeatedly to see who has [the medication] in stock. In some cases, we set alarm reminders so we can check every so often whether an item is back in stock. We also ask around on our professional WhatsApp groups to source stock,' she told The Pharmacist.

For dispensers, shortages slow down the workflow 'significantly', Ms Anyamene added.

'We also spend quite a bit of time taking phone calls from anxious patients and other healthcare professionals sourcing medicines that are unavailable,' she reported.

And she said shortages affected pharmacists’ relationships with their patients and with local GPs.

Ms Anyamene said that patients 'can understandably be frustrated and occasionally rude', and 'a lot of times don’t want to believe us'.

'In some cases, patients actually break down in tears when they can’t get their much-needed medications,' she said.

Pharmacy contractor Baba Akomolafe agreed. He told The Pharmacist that colleagues within his primary care network (PCN) spent more than six hours each week mitigating medicines shortages.

‘As a healthcare professional you have a duty of care for your patients and you hate to disappoint them,’ he told The Pharmacist.

But he said that trying to solve medicines shortages ‘outside your control’ could lead to anxiety and poor mental health for the pharmacist and the pharmacy team.

‘The financial impact on the pharmacy business is usually what gets the most attention, however patients’ dissatisfaction, staff morale, friction with some GPs who expect us to be able to “do our job” and sort this out, cannot be quantified,’ he added.

'More needs to be done urgently' to tackle medication shortages

Mike Dent, CPE director of pharmacy funding, said it was ‘worrying that medicines supply problems continue to affect pharmacy teams and their patients’.

‘Pharmacy teams are investing more of their time and resources in sourcing essential medications, diverting attention from other important tasks and adding significantly to workload pressures.' he said.

‘More needs to be done urgently to protect patients and pharmacies from ongoing supply chain disruptions.

'The health and wellbeing of local communities and the public should not be put at risk, and there should be no delays in patients being able to access the medicines they need, when they need them.’

Medicines shortages 'compromise pharmacists' ability to provide clinical services'

Jay Badenhorst, director of pharmacy at the Pharmacists’ Defence Association (PDA), described the situation as ‘critical’.

He said it was ‘deeply concerning’ that pharmacists were now spending an average of eight hours each week managing medicine shortages.

‘This growing issue not only places an unsustainable burden on pharmacists but also compromises their ability to provide clinical services and other essential care to patients,’ Mr Badenhorst added.

And Professor Claire Anderson, president of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) said the hours spent managing medicines shortages took ‘valuable time’ away from patient care.

She said The Pharmacist’s survey findings ‘underline the urgent need for sustained investment in community pharmacy and action to address workforce pressures and ongoing medicines shortages’.

And she reiterated calls for a UK-wide strategy to manage medicines shortages and support for pharmacists to ensure community pharmacy remains an attractive career.

‘Supporting community pharmacists is essential to ensuring excellent patient care and service access within primary care,’ Professor Anderson added.

A spokesperson for the Company Chemists’ Association agreed and said the issue was ‘on the rise’, with shortages taking up ‘an increasing part of pharmacists' time’ that ‘could be better spent providing patient-facing care’.

‘An end-to-end review of the medicines supply chain is urgently needed to ensure that patients can receive the medicines they need in a timely manner,' they said said.

‘Community pharmacists must be able to do the important work of interacting with patients face-to-face without being bogged down by trying to source their medicines.'

The Healthcare Distribution Association (HDA), which represents the interests of medicines wholesalers, told The Pharmacist that medicine shortages could be influenced by supply disruptions, including global issues like the war in Ukraine or Red Sea transport disruption, which could have 'significant effects on long supply chains' with long lead times.

The HDA also cited unexpected increases in demand as possible reasons for shortages, and suggested that market comparison portals used by pharmacies to search for the best price when placing orders could 'have the effect of confounding attempts to predict demand and develop accurate forecasts'.

And accidental over-buying activities by healthcare professionals to protect their patient cohort can also result in stock not being at the right part of the supply chain at the right time, the HDA added.

A spokesperson added that over the last year, 'HDA believes that the huge commercial pressures on community pharmacy, without a fair funding deal, created the conditions at times for "economic-driven" shortages, where individual pharmacies were unable to purchase some medicines which would be dispensed at a loss to their business'.

In response to The Pharmacist's survey findings, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said that the current government had inherited 'ongoing global supply problems that continue to impact medicine availability'.

'We are working closely with industry, the NHS, manufacturers and other partners to resolve current supply issues as quickly as possible,' they added.

'The pharmacy system has been neglected for too long and isn’t supporting pharmacists to deliver the care they want for patients.

'Community pharmacy has a vital role to play as we shift the focus of the NHS out of hospitals and into the community, and we will work with the sector, making better use of the skills of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, to build a service fit for the future.'

Struggling with medicines shortages? Dr James Davies, co-author of Medicines Shortages: Solutions for Empty Shelves from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, shared five steps for The Pharmacist readers to take when dealing with medicines supply problems.