'I drive miles in search of life-changing medicine'

A patient whose life-changing medication is in critically short supply says he drives hundreds of miles in order to find it.

Phil Emmett, 80, from Bardney in Lincolnshire, needs Creon to be able to digest food. Without it, he has excruciating bowel pain and feels too sick to eat.

"Getting medication when you're in a rural area is extremely difficult," he said. "It's not like living in a town. If I visited five chemists, I would probably travel 100 miles."

The Department of Health said it had "inherited ongoing global supply problems" with medicines and was "working with industry, the NHS and others in the supply chain to mitigate the risk to patients".

Mr Emmett suffered damage to his pancreas, bladder and bowels during radiotherapy for prostate cancer.

He was prescribed eight Creon tablets a day, but because of the limited supply is only taking six. He has an alternative prescription for Pancrex and should take 16 a day, but instead is taking one because he only has two days' worth of supplies.

He said reducing his dose had left him in pain, unable to eat as usual and fearing he might lose weight and become malnourished.

Mr Emmett scours the internet for supplies and has asked his nephew in London to search for his medication in the capital.

"This morning I was lucky. I found Pancrex in one of the chemists in Louth. But now I've got to get a prescription from my surgery, then go up to Louth and back, which is around a 46-mile round trip," he said.

Creon, along with the alternatives Pancrex and Nutrizine, are prescribed to patients with pancreatic conditions, including cancer and cystic fibrosis. Creon is in such short supply that prescriptions are now only given for one month, rather than three.

It joins a list of drugs that have been hard to find, including Ozempic, children's liquid antibiotics, and those for ADHD and HRT.

Irene Boateng, the pharmacist at Bardney Pharmacy, said she had a list of 18 medicines that were out of stock.

She said Brexit, supply chain issues and limited supplies of raw materials were among the reasons for the shortages.

For patients it could worsen their conditions or symptoms, "and for us it can cause stress, because we have to spend time to track medicines", she added.

If medication was unavailable, it could take a long time to track down an alternative, Ms Boateng said.

She could also face an added cost if the alternative medication was more expensive than that prescribed.

"The drug tariff is the agreed price, so if I pay even a penny more, or a pound more, I have to pay that cost."

The National Pharmacy Association has described the supply of medicines in the UK as "grossly underfunded" and has urged the government to appoint a medicine shortages tsar to tackle what it described as a "growing and complex crisis".

The Department for Health said supply issues with Creon were affecting countries throughout Europe and had been caused by limited availability of raw ingredients and constraints on manufacturing capacity.

It said it had "inherited ongoing global supply problems that continue to impact the availability of medicines, including Creon".

It added: “We know how distressing this can be for patients and we are working closely with industry, the NHS and others in the supply chain to mitigate the risk to patients and make sure alternative products are available until their usual treatments are back in stock.”

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