What causes medicines shortages: the supply chain explained Record numbers of price concessions over the past year indicate increasing shortages. But what’s behind them — global events, commercial decisions or confusion about where stock is located?…
Trust commissions benzodiazepine review following patient death A patient died by suicide after being permanently prescribed diazepam without a required medical review while awaiting a re-titration of her clozapine prescription.…
Maternal RSV vaccine halves newborn ICU admissions, says UKHSA There were 63 infants admitted to intensive care or higher dependency hospital units with RSV chest infection in winter 2025/2026, down from 131 the year prior.…
Alex Williams: ‘There’s a risk to the resilience of the supply chain if government doesn’t invest’ Increased costs and low medicines reimbursement could jeopardise the service that wholesalers provide to pharmacies, says the new chief executive of the Healthcare Distribution Association.…
MHRA approves orforglipron weight-loss pill The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency said its approval of orforglipron makes the UK the first country in Europe to authorise the medication.…
UK patients being recruited for ribupatide trials Researchers will assess the efficacy of up to 10mg doses of weight-loss drug ribupatide in patients with or without diabetes over around an 18-month period.…
Government did not conduct impact assessment for community pharmacy prescribing Exclusive: The Department of Health and Social Care told The Pharmaceutical Journal that changes under the ‘Community pharmacy contractual framework’ for 2026/2027 and other years since 2023 did not reach the threshold for an impact assessment.…
Antihistamine prescribing increased by 18% in five years NHS Business Services Authority data also show that fexofenadine has been the most commonly prescribed and dispensed antihistamine in the community in England since 2021/2022.…
Incretin-based weight-loss drugs should not be deliberately continued in pregnancy, consensus guidelines state The guidelines have been drawn up by a multidisciplinary group of experts following a systematic scoping review.…
Delivery of 90,000 meningitis B vaccinations for young people prompts call for annual campaign During the first week of the NHS meningococcal B disease vaccination service, more than 8,200 participating pharmacies received around 135,000 bookings.…
