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A report by the Nuffield Trust has revealed disruptions to medicines supply in the UK significantly worsened last year but suggested Brexit was “only partly to blame” and insisted there were numerous factors driving shortages.

According to a freedom of information request by the Trust to the Department of Health and Social Care, the number of supply notifications it and NHS England issued in the first seven months of 2024 was higher on average than across 2020, 2021, 2022 or 2023.

The report, based on interviews and an analysis of international data, said manufacturers reported more “anticipated” medicines supply issues to the DHSC in the first half of 2024 than in the first six months of any year since 2019.

More disruptions were reported last year than in 2022 or 2023 and the report noted “an anomalous spike in late 2021” was probably the result of “fears over the place of Northern Ireland (post-Brexit)”.

Number of concessions ‘unthinkable a decade ago’

The number of monthly price concessions last year fell from about 200 to less than 150. However, the report said that number was “unthinkable a decade ago when the number of concessions was consistently less than a tenth of this”.

Laying out a number of factors behind shortages, the report said: “EU member states face many of the same problems as the UK, driven by fragile supply chains, the disruption of war, the Covid-19 pandemic and a tightly competitive market for cheap, generic medicines.”

However, the report noted “signs of unique patterns in the UK that likely do relate to its position outside the EU”. It highlighted data from the United Nations showing the UK has had the lowest rise in imports of medicines of all G7 countries since 2010.

The report also used HM Revenue and Customs data to show imports of medicines to the UK from the EU has fallen, “adding to the evidence that new trade barriers related to Brexit are a likely explanation”.

The value of medicines in cash terms imported into the UK between 2015 and 2023 fell by around 20 per cent. The report said that was “an indication of how medicine supply chains have shifted away from the UK”.