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The government intends to set out its next steps on whether pharmacists should be enabled, in certain circumstances, to supply an alternative strength or formulation of a prescribed medicine “in the coming weeks”, it has said.
The Department of Health and Social Care’s comments come after the Pharmacy All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) published a report on 15 October 2026, calling for such flexibilities to be allowed when a prescribed medicine is out of stock.
The APPG noted that it had been nearly one year since the government’s consultation on pharmacist flexibilities closed in December 2025, but the outcome has still not been published.
It called on the government to “implement pharmacist flexibilities, publish the consultation response and bring forward the changes without delay”.
The report follows an evidence session held on 13 July 2026, which brought together a number of pharmacy representatives, including Bruce Warner, a member of the Royal College of Pharmacy’s English Pharmacy Advisory Council.
Participants at the July 2026 evidence session felt that progress had been made since the APPG published its initial inquiry into medicines shortages in England in July 2025, the report said. This progress included greater collaboration between stakeholders across the medicines supply chain and improvements in communication and information sharing.
However, it warned that one year on, pharmacy teams were still absorbing “much of the practical impact of medicines shortages”, spending considerable time sourcing medicines, identifying alternatives and supporting patients, while patients continue to experience disruption to treatment.
According to draft NHS prescription management guidance, published on 9 October 2026, community pharmacist prescribers will be able to supply alternatives when a prescription is out of stock, but no flexibilities have yet been announced for non-prescribers which make up the majority of the community pharmacist workforce in England.
Sadik Al-Hassan, Labour MP and chair of the APPG on pharmacy, said in a foreword to the report: “There has been welcome progress, and medicines shortages are now rightly seen as a national, system-wide challenge. But for the patient waiting at the counter and the pharmacist on the phone trying to find stock, too little has changed. We cannot allow this to become the new normal.
“The government has had the pharmacist flexibilities consultation on its desk since December [2025]. Publishing that response and getting on with implementation is the single quickest thing it could do to help patients now.”
Responding to the APPG report on 16 October 2026, a spokesperson for the DHSC told The Pharmaceutical Journal: “We plan to set out next steps in the coming weeks.”
Henry Gregg, chief executive of the National Pharmacy Association, commented: “The APPG are right to recognise the immense challenges medicine shortages continue to pose both patients and pharmacies. It should cause deep alarm that we have some of the longest running medicine shortages in history, with Creon and Estradot recently having their title extended as being Britain’s longest running medicine shortage on record.
“We agree with the APPG that more can be done to prevent medicine shortages before they have happened and the government should convene a taskforce bringing together the whole supply chain to tackle this.”
