Gillian-Ann Wordsworth, 84, takes Apixaban to prevent and treat blood clots for her heart condition.<\/p>\n
In recent weeks it has been out of stock and Wordsworth has been put on an alternative medication.<\/p>\n
She said: “They can’t get the Apixaban, so I was without medication all day Saturday. It’s all a bit worrying because after all, it is the heart at the end of the day.”<\/p>\n
Jones said: “A lot of very commonly used medications have gone into short supply in a very short period of time.”<\/p>\n
He added that, as well as international problems exacerbating the shortages, “the drugs budget is simply too small”.<\/p>\n
Currently the NHS pays pharmacies a fixed price for each medicine it dispenses. <\/p>\n
Pharmacies then have to try and source the drug for that amount, or less.<\/p>\n
But when the price goes above what the NHS pays, the medication is placed on the government’s price concessions list.<\/p>\n
Last month, the list hit a record high with 210 named medications on it.<\/p>\n
Pharmacy owners will usually be reimbursed for drugs on the list at the new price. <\/p>\n
However, when market prices rise suddenly – often above the original tariff and even above the concession price offered – pharmacies end up dispensing medication at a loss.<\/p>\n
Jones said this happens all the time.<\/p>\n
“A high volume medication we dispense a lot of is Apixaban, we’re currently getting paid circa \u00a33 for that medication [from the NHS], it’s costing us \u00a36\u2026it’s a difficult situation,” he explained.<\/p>\n
He said it makes it harder for pharmacies to buy enough stock for all of their patients and increases the chance that people will face delays or sudden shortages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gillian-Ann Wordsworth, 84, takes Apixaban to prevent and treat blood clots for her heart condition. In recent weeks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[163,85,46,482],"class_list":["post-462149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-health","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}