Medicines shortages risk failure of Pharmacy First scheme, warn MPs

Stock image. iStock.com/sturti

By Lily Canter and Storm Newton, PA Media

The government’s flagship Pharmacy First scheme “will fail” if patients are forced to keep returning to their GP for alternative prescriptions, warn MPs.

Persistent medicines shortages risk undermining the initiative by “eroding public confidence in pharmacists”, according to a report by the MPs’ Health and Social Care Committee.

“If patients struggle to get their medication, the bread and butter of community pharmacy, it cannot come as a surprise if they are then reluctant to visit for clinical services,” the report said.

The report, published as part of the committee’s inquiry into pharmacy services, also warned the sector is “creaking under the strain of funding pressures, medicine shortages and skill mix challenges”.

The committee is calling for an independent review of medicine supply chain shortages and a regulatory change to allow pharmacists to dispense alternatives without sending patients back to GPs for new prescriptions.

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