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Report
Sunderland's pharmacists warn of healthcare 'crisis' with medication shortages due to funding cuts
Sunderland Echo
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05/06/2024
Herdman Chemists pharmacist Ilyas Zaheer discusses the impacts of the current 'funding crisis'.
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News
Transcript
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00:00
Okay then Zaheer, you've worked as a pharmacist for the last 10 years, so what's the situation
00:05
at the moment in terms of funding then?
00:07
So in terms of funding, we haven't had any increase in funding in the last 8 years. It's
00:12
been around about £2.6 billion that was cut prior to that which was £2.8 billion, so
00:18
for the last 8 years we haven't had any increase in funding at all.
00:21
And what's been the implications for pharmacies, for drug supply, just what's the situation
00:25
at the moment in terms of the impact this is having?
00:27
So at the moment obviously we've got a lot of out of stocks. We're giving out medication
00:31
at an increased rate, so medications we give out which are over tariff. Over tariff means
00:36
that we actually make a loss on these medications. We're the only sector that I know of that
00:40
we actually do give out medication at a loss. So I mean these have increased dramatically
00:45
over the last few years I would say. 10 years ago when I was a dispenser there was probably
00:51
one or two, now it's increased to probably about 4, 5 or even more. Just this morning
00:57
there's been 8 that have been out of stock and obviously over tariff there's quite a
01:00
lot of them at the moment.
01:01
Is that in part because pharmacies are struggling to afford the cost of these new drugs?
01:07
I mean in essence it could be. Mostly it's because of obviously the out of stocks and
01:15
obviously the over tariff so there's a lot of pharmacies that may not be able to buy
01:18
these medications because they know they're going to be making a loss at it.
01:23
And in terms of closure of pharmacies, are you aware of pharmacies having to close because
01:26
of this funding?
01:27
I mean there's quite a lot of pharmacies that if funding doesn't improve they have stress
01:31
that they will have to close the doors. Obviously if that does happen there'll be a lot of patients
01:36
that will actually have to find another pharmacy which could be further afield. In essence
01:40
this could affect patient care.
01:44
And what are some of the drugs which there have been shortages of?
01:47
So there's nothing, it's all over to be honest. You can't pinpoint a certain drug. It's all
01:53
over the board. There's out of stocks all over the board at the moment. Before there
01:57
were certain categories but right now just doing the order this morning there were eight
02:01
out of stocks and it wasn't part of a certain category. It was pretty much across the board.
02:05
And I'm guessing all these medications are medications that people need?
02:08
Yes they are, definitely.
02:09
So obviously we've got a general election coming up at the moment. Whether it's the
02:13
Labour government, whether it's a Conservative government, what would your message be?
02:16
My message is we need some kind of increase in funding. We've been at the forefront throughout
02:21
the pandemic throughout 2020, 2021 when obviously we're kind of getting out of the pandemic.
02:26
We've never closed our doors. I just feel like we are being quite undervalued. I feel
02:31
like we do need some kind of reassurance that we are going to get extra funding so we can
02:36
stay open. So there's no formalities that have to close the door due obviously to the
02:41
funding crisis. Like I mentioned there's been increasing expenses but we haven't seen any
02:48
kind of substract, we haven't seen any funding to obviously make up them expenses at all.
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