Sunderland's pharmacists warn of healthcare 'crisis' with medication shortages due to funding cuts

Herdman Chemists pharmacist Ilyas Zaheer discusses the impacts of the current 'funding crisis'.

Transcript

00:00Okay then Zaheer, you've worked as a pharmacist for the last 10 years, so what's the situation

00:05at the moment in terms of funding then?

00:07So in terms of funding, we haven't had any increase in funding in the last 8 years. It's

00:12been around about £2.6 billion that was cut prior to that which was £2.8 billion, so

00:18for the last 8 years we haven't had any increase in funding at all.

00:21And what's been the implications for pharmacies, for drug supply, just what's the situation

00:25at the moment in terms of the impact this is having?

00:27So at the moment obviously we've got a lot of out of stocks. We're giving out medication

00:31at an increased rate, so medications we give out which are over tariff. Over tariff means

00:36that we actually make a loss on these medications. We're the only sector that I know of that

00:40we actually do give out medication at a loss. So I mean these have increased dramatically

00:45over the last few years I would say. 10 years ago when I was a dispenser there was probably

00:51one or two, now it's increased to probably about 4, 5 or even more. Just this morning

00:57there's been 8 that have been out of stock and obviously over tariff there's quite a

01:00lot of them at the moment.

01:01Is that in part because pharmacies are struggling to afford the cost of these new drugs?

01:07I mean in essence it could be. Mostly it's because of obviously the out of stocks and

01:15obviously the over tariff so there's a lot of pharmacies that may not be able to buy

01:18these medications because they know they're going to be making a loss at it.

01:23And in terms of closure of pharmacies, are you aware of pharmacies having to close because

01:26of this funding?

01:27I mean there's quite a lot of pharmacies that if funding doesn't improve they have stress

01:31that they will have to close the doors. Obviously if that does happen there'll be a lot of patients

01:36that will actually have to find another pharmacy which could be further afield. In essence

01:40this could affect patient care.

01:44And what are some of the drugs which there have been shortages of?

01:47So there's nothing, it's all over to be honest. You can't pinpoint a certain drug. It's all

01:53over the board. There's out of stocks all over the board at the moment. Before there

01:57were certain categories but right now just doing the order this morning there were eight

02:01out of stocks and it wasn't part of a certain category. It was pretty much across the board.

02:05And I'm guessing all these medications are medications that people need?

02:08Yes they are, definitely.

02:09So obviously we've got a general election coming up at the moment. Whether it's the

02:13Labour government, whether it's a Conservative government, what would your message be?

02:16My message is we need some kind of increase in funding. We've been at the forefront throughout

02:21the pandemic throughout 2020, 2021 when obviously we're kind of getting out of the pandemic.

02:26We've never closed our doors. I just feel like we are being quite undervalued. I feel

02:31like we do need some kind of reassurance that we are going to get extra funding so we can

02:36stay open. So there's no formalities that have to close the door due obviously to the

02:41funding crisis. Like I mentioned there's been increasing expenses but we haven't seen any

02:48kind of substract, we haven't seen any funding to obviously make up them expenses at all.