The onus will be placed on manufacturers and wholesalers to ensure there is a sufficient supply of medicines to the NHS, health ministers have decided.
A package of tough new actions was agreed at a summit to discuss current difficulties with the supply of medicines, hosted by Health Secretary Andy Burnham and Health Minister Mike O’Brien.
The issue of medicine shortages was raised last year due to the scarcity of certain drugs as a result of unscrupulous traders exporting medicines meant for NHS patients to Europe for profit.
The actions agreed include a more explicit duty for manufacturers and wholesalers to ensure that sufficient stocks of medicines are available to NHS patients, a series of targeted inspections by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) and tougher standards for the issue of licences to medical wholesalers.
Best practice guidance will also be developed on how supply difficulties should be dealt with by doctors, pharmacists, manufacturers and wholesalers.
The targeted inspections mean that manufacturers and wholesalers will risk losing their licences and face prosecution if they breach legal duties on supply of medicines. Pharmacists and doctors risk being called to account by their professional bodies for breaching their ethical obligation to put patients first.
Ministers met with representatives from the ABPI, the British Association of Pharmaceutical Wholesalers, the National Pharmacy Association, the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee and the MHRA to discuss the nature and scale of medicines supply problems.
Richard Barker, Director General of the ABPI, said: “Getting vital medicines to NHS patients is the job of all of us in the medicines supply chain and so we welcome the collaborative approach being taken by the Forum. We also strongly support the proposal to raise the standards to be applied to the licensing of wholesalers, to reinforce their mission to deliver medicines to meet the needs of UK patients, who should be at the centre of all of our activities.”