March 24th 2025

By Ailsa Colquhoun

Brexit still to blame for medicines shortages, new report finds

Post-Brexit relations between the EU and the UK remain a cause of medicines shortages, concludes a new  Nuffield Trust report.

This describes medicines shortages as “elevated and troubling”, with no consistent sign of improvement in key indicators. Medicine supply notifications issued to the Department of Health and Social Care by medicines companies were higher across 2024 than during 2022, or 2023. The UK has had the lowest import growth in medicines of any G7 country, driven by a reduction in EU imports. 

Commenting, Dr Nick Fahy, director of the health and care research group at RAND Europe, said: “The UK government also has an opportunity here. As wider events are driving UK-EU co-operation in defence and security, a "reset" for closer and better working with the EU would benefit from an ambition of also delivering concrete benefits for health." 

• A report by the Company Chemists Association has blamed medicine shortages and avoidable harm to patients on governmental 'penny-pinching'.