Brexit laid bare the fragility of the country’s medicines supply network, the report said. Photograph: Julien Behal/PA
Drug shortages are a “new normal” in the UK and are being exacerbated by Brexit, a report by the Nuffield Trust health thinktank has warned. A dramatic recent spike in the number of drugs that are unavailable has created serious problems for doctors, pharmacists, the NHS and patients, it found.
The number of warnings drug companies have issued about impending supply problems for certain products has more than doubled from 648 in 2020 to 1,634 last year.
Mark Dayan, the report’s lead author and the Nuffield Trust’s Brexit programme lead, said: “The rise in shortages of vital medicines from rare to commonplace has been a shocking development that few would have expected a decade ago.”
The UK has been struggling since last year with major shortages of drugs to treat ADHD, type 2 diabetes and epilepsy. Three ADHD drugs that were in short supply were meant to be back in normal circulation by the end of 2023 but remain hard to obtain.
Some medicine shortages are so serious that they are imperilling the health and even lives of patients with serious illnesses, pharmacy bosses warned.
Health charities have seen a sharp rise in calls from patients unable to obtain their usual medication. Nicola Swanborough, head of external affairs at the Epilepsy Society, said: “Our helpline has been inundated with calls from desperate people who are having to travel miles, often visiting multiple pharmacies to try and access their medication.”
The Supreme Court building, Parliament Square, London
A CARE worker victimised at work for taking strike action has humiliated the government in the Supreme Court today.
In a case brought by public-sector union Unison, Britain’s highest court ordered the government to outlaw the victimisation of workers for striking as part of a landmark ruling today.
Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said the case was the “most important industrial action case for decades” while the TUC hailed it as “monumental.”
The judgement is a slap in the face for former business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, who had ordered an appeal against a previous court decision upholding the worker’s claim.
It is also a victory for millions of workers who will be protected from victimisation by vengeful bosses if they take strike action in the future.
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TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “This is a monumental victory for Unison and the whole union movement.
“And it represents yet another crushing legal defeat for the Conservative government’s oppressive strike laws.
Mark Menzies strongly disputes the allegations that were put to him by the Times. Photograph: Richard Townshend/UK Parliament/PA
A Conservative MP has lost the party whip after an investigation was launched following claims that he misused campaign funds.
Mark Menzies, 52, also faced allegations that he made a late-night call to a 78-year-old aide asking for help because he had been locked up by “bad people” demanding thousands of pounds for his release.
The Fylde MP disputes the allegations reported by the Times, but the Conservative party is looking into the claims and taking them seriously. A spokesperson for the chief whip, Simon Hart, said on Wednesday night: “Following a call with the chief whip, Mark Menzies has agreed to relinquish the Conservative whip, pending the outcome of an investigation.”
According to the newspaper, £14,000 given by donors for use in Tory campaign activities was transferred to Menzies’ personal bank accounts and used for private medical expenses.
The MP, who is one of Rishi Sunak’s trade envoys, is also said to have called his 78-year-old former campaign manager at 3.15am in December, claiming he was locked in a flat and needed £5,000 as a matter of “life and death”.
Six Sunrise Movement activists were arrested while protesting outside of Vice President Kamala Harris’ home in Los Angeles, California on April 15, 2024. (Photo: Sunrise Movement/X)
“We deserve an administration who will fight for us, but instead of declaring a climate emergency, we are seeing Biden and Harris expand oil and gas production to record levels.”
Six young activists were arrested outside Vice President Kamala Harris’ Los Angeles home on Monday while calling on the White House to declare a climate emergency, according to the youth-led Sunrise Movement.
Harris and President Joe Biden–Democrats who are seeking reelection in November—campaigned as climate champions in the 2020 cycle but have had a mixed record on the topic since entering office.
“My generation is spending our teenage years organizing for climate action because people like Kamala Harris have failed us,” said Adah Crandall, one of the activists arrested after blockading the street outside her California residence overnight.
“We’re ready to do whatever it takes to win a climate emergency declaration—we will camp out overnight, we will get arrested, we will mobilize our peers by the thousands to win the world we deserve,” the 18-year-old continued. “The Biden administration are cowards for not standing with young people.”
“The Biden administration are cowards for not standing with young people.”
The White House has been praised for climate provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act as well was a recent pause on liquefied natural gas exports. However, the president has also faced criticism for continuing fossil fuel lease sales, backing the Mountain Valley Pipeline and Willow oil project, and skipping last year’s United Nations summit.
Just last week, the Biden administration approved a license for a pipeline company to build the nation’s largest offshore oil terminal off of Texas’ Gulf Coast—despite surging fossil fuel pollution that is pushing up global temperatures.
Sunrise last week condemned the approval as “very disappointing” and also joined with Campus Climate Network and Fridays for Future USA to announce Earth Day demonstrations intended to pressure Biden to declare a climate emergency.
Biden claimed last year that “practically speaking,” he had already declared a national climate emergency; however, as campaigners and experts have stressed, actually doing so would unlock various federal powers to tackle the fossil fuel-driving crisis.
Stand with Ariela and the young people arrested this morning. Urge President Biden to act: https://t.co/BesSjADGHy
“Our communities in California breathe toxic air from fossil fuels and face fires that destroy our homes,” noted 18-year-old Ariela Lara, who was arrested at Harris’ home.
“I’m on the frontlines raising my voice for my Black and Latine families and friends,” Lara added, “because I know that we deserve to have affordable housing and healthcare, we deserve an administration who will fight for us, but instead of declaring a climate emergency, we are seeing Biden and Harris expand oil and gas production to record levels.”
The action targeting Harris came after a February protest at Biden’s campaign headquarters in Delaware that also led to arrests.
Dr Sarah Brown is fighting to keep her medical practice licence after she was jailed for 31 days. Picture: Just Stop Oil/Alamy
A GP who was jailed for taking part in a Just Stop Oil protest has defended her actions by claiming they were part of a doctor’s ‘fundamental duty is to protect health and life’.
Dr Sarah Brown is now fighting to keep her medical practice licence after she was jailed for 31 days for contempt of court and breaching an injunction to not demonstrate outside Kingsbury oil terminal, Warwickshire, in 2022.
The doctor from Birmingham could now be struck off from the medical register following a tribunal today.
Dr Brown defended her actions in a statement published by Just Stop Oil: “As a doctor, my fundamental duty is to protect health and life.
“This includes proactive efforts to prevent disease and death. The climate crisis is the most significant existential threat to global health we have ever faced.”
🚨 BREAKING: Former GP Faces Losing Medical Licence for Taking Action to Protect Patients' Lives
🩺 This week, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service is reviewing the case of Dr Sarah Benn, 57, who has been arrested multiple times taking action to stop oil.
