Pharmacists and GPs have warned that NHS medicine shortages have reached record severity, with patients struggling to obtain common painkillers, epilepsy drugs and hormone replacement therapy. The National Pharmacy Association has said the situation poses a serious risk to patient safety, as supply disruptions affect an increasingly wide range of medicines across the country.

At the centre of the crisis are two drugs that have now been under serious shortage protocols for longer than any other medicines in NHS history. Estradot, an HRT patch prescribed to menopausal women, has been subject to a shortage protocol for around 18 months. Creon, a digestive enzyme medication used by patients with pancreatic cancer and cystic fibrosis, has been affected for two years. Both protocols were recently extended by the NHS until 10 July. Serious shortage protocols were introduced by the Department of Health as a short-term emergency measure and were never intended to remain in place for this duration.

The human cost is considerable. Bryony Thomas, 48, a pancreatic cancer survivor from Stroud, Gloucestershire, relies on Creon because her pancreas no longer produces the enzymes needed to digest food. She has had to ration her supply on multiple occasions over the past two years, at one point reducing her food intake for three months when she could not obtain the drug at all. She has since sourced medication through patient groups on social media, and is calling on the government to establish a central distribution mechanism to pool Creon supplies left unused by patients who have died. Those stocks are currently destroyed.

The shortages extend well beyond Creon and Estradot. Pharmacies have reported difficulty sourcing Ramipril, used to manage high blood pressure, as well as low-dose aspirin and co-codamol. The knock-on effects include price rises for some drugs, among them paracetamol and cetirizine, a common hay fever treatment.

Several factors are driving the problem. Raw ingredient shortages, manufacturing disruptions and the UK's comparatively smaller medicines budget relative to other European countries have all contributed. The conflict in the Middle East has added further instability to global supply chains, though the NPA has noted this is not the sole cause. In the case of HRT, changing prescribing patterns have placed additional pressure on already strained supplies.

More than 1,000 GPs and pharmacists are meeting in Birmingham this weekend at a conference organised by the NPA to discuss the crisis, with improved information-sharing on medicines availability among the key topics. The NPA, which represents 6,000 independent community pharmacies across the UK, is calling on the government to convene an urgent task force bringing together medicine manufacturers, wholesalers and clinicians to address the underlying supply issues.

The NPA's chair, Olivier Picard, a chemist, stated that shortages were occurring more frequently, staying longer, and upsetting patients more. "These shortages are some of the most severe the UK has experienced," he stated. "It is deeply distressing to find patients who have travelled from pharmacy to pharmacy to find the medicines they need without success." Picard is also pushing for legislation that would allow pharmacists, who are now prohibited from doing so, to use a safe replacement when one is available.

The Royal College of General Practitioners' president, Prof. Victoria Tzortziou Brown, recognised the frustration the issue was generating throughout the system. "Medicine shortages can be frustrating for patients, GPs and chemists alike, especially when patients have to endure lots of back and forth to acquire a suitable alternative," she added, stressing the need of promptly identifying and resolving underlying reasons when shortages occurred.

The Department of Health and Social Care said the overwhelming majority of medicines licensed in the UK remained in good supply and that patients should expect their prescriptions to be available when visiting a pharmacy. A spokesperson added that the government was making significant investments in domestic medicine manufacturing to strengthen long-term supply resilience.