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Every hospital pharmacist who responded to a European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) survey said they had experienced a critical medicine shortage in 2024.
Results of the survey, published in the EAHP’s ‘2025 shortages survey report‘ on 28 November 2025, also revealed that more than one-third (38%) of respondents said medicines shortages had resulted in cancellation of care, while a similar proportion (40%) said medical device shortages had also led to care cancellations.
The survey, conducted through Survey Monkey between 13 March and 15 July 2025, received responses from 859 hospital pharmacists in 36 different countries and 21 respondents based in the UK.
According to the findings, every respondent said they’d experienced a critical medicine shortage at least one to three times in 2024. Delays in care or therapy owing to medicines shortages were also reported by nearly two-thirds (64%) of respondents.
In addition, almost nine out of ten (89%) respondents reported that medicines shortages were frequently encountered in their hospital, while 77% said that IT systems are not automatically updated with information on ongoing medicine shortages.
Of the medicines most frequently in shortage, respondents said that nearly two-thirds (63%) were antimicrobial agents; almost half (46%) were oncology medicines; and nearly one-third (32%) were anaesthetics agents.
More than half (53%) of hospital pharmacists also said that medical devices shortages constitute a problem in delivering the best care to patients.
Nearly three-quarters (74%) of respondents thought that global shortages of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) was a primary cause of medicines shortages, with other causes believed to be manufacturing issues (65%) and medicine pricing (56%).
It its report, the EAHP makes several calls to address medicines shortages, which include supporting the European production of APIs, as well as requiring manufacturers to create and maintain safety plans and risk assessments.
It also recommends: “Introducing procurement practices based on comprehensive set of criteria, not solely on the price of a medicine or a medical device, adopting a multi-winner approach and consulting representatives of hospital pharmacists and other healthcare professionals when tendering procedures are centralised.”
In a foreword to the report, Nenad Miljković, president of the EAHP, said: “Times are tougher than ever before, with medicines and medical devices shortages, being more frequent and more impactful, in terms of affecting continuity of care and healthcare services delivery as a whole.”
In its 2024 report, ‘Medicines shortages: solutions for empty shelves‘, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) recommended that hospitals should be supported to enforce penalties on suppliers failing to meet contract requirements.
Amandeep Doll, director for England at the RPS, commented: “We want the government to take action to protect patients and support hospital pharmacists by strengthening medicine supply chains, boosting domestic manufacturing, improving forecasting and introducing sensible regulatory flexibilities to keep shelves stocked.”
During a House of Lords Public Services Committee session on medicines security held in October 2025, Keith Ridge, former chief pharmaceutical officer for England, expressed concern that there is no explicit UK government policy around the stockpiling of critical medicines.
