{"id":832865,"date":"2026-11-13T02:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-11-13T02:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/832865\/"},"modified":"2026-11-13T02:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-11-13T02:18:14","slug":"antibiotic-and-adhd-drug-shortages-set-to-be-eased-under-new-brexit-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/832865\/","title":{"rendered":"Antibiotic and ADHD drug shortages set to be eased under new Brexit deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK and EU are set to strike a deal to help tackle post-Brexit shortages of medicines<\/a> such as antibiotics, ADHD medication<\/a> and epilepsy drugs at next week\u2019s reset summit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The two sides are finalising a health security agreement that will help address shortages of certain drugs which have got worse since Brexit<\/a>, according to a draft text of a joint UK-EU statement seen by The i Paper.<\/p>\n

The deal is designed to boost the sharing of intelligence on medicine supplies<\/a>, helping the two sides collaborate as they experience supply shortages driven by global instability, but also partly by post-Brexit trade barriers<\/a> in the case of the UK.<\/p>\n

Experts on post-Brexit health policy said the planned deal appeared to be \u201csignificant\u201d and a \u201cgood first step\u201d in addressing shortages that have hit both sides of the Channel in recent years, with recent crises in obtaining medicines such antibiotics needed for winter illnesses, and critical products to help people with long-term conditions such as ADHD<\/a> and epilepsy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is expected to come alongside a major Brexit reset package of agreements on food and drink trade, carbon markets and youth mobility that Andy Burnham<\/a> said will boost the UK\u2019s economy by adding 0.4 per cent to gross domestic product.<\/p>\n

An EU draft text of a joint statement, which is forming a key part of the negotiations, refers to both sides using the 20 November summit in Brussels to welcome the signing of a memorandum of understanding on health security.<\/p>\n

Deal is \u2018significant\u2019<\/p>\n

This will include \u201cmatters concerning medical countermeasures\u201d and the finalisation of a specialised committee on health security as part of the overarching post-Brexit trade deal.<\/p>\n

The i Paper has learnt this will help both sides inform each other of where there are shortages and share information on how to source supplies.<\/p>\n

Mark Dayan, Brexit programme lead at the Nuffield Trust, a health think-tank, said the deal was \u201csignificant\u201d and would help both the UK and EU, which have been dealing with a \u201creally bad four or five years for medicines shortages<\/a>\u2026 a really serious issue that is affecting patient care and taking up a huge amount of pharmacists\u2019 time in the NHS\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the way managing medicine shortages works, finding out about them sooner is really useful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should allow the UK and EU to have better intelligence, and that they are able to identify better where there are stocks and move them around.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are things that are very important with how you respond to an individual medicine shortage and try to make sure it never reaches patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

It comes with the UK facing extra barriers to bringing medicines to the country and moving them the other way to the EU due to extra regulatory steps and border checks necessitated by Brexit.<\/p>\n

UK locked out of measures to alleviate shortages<\/p>\n

Britain also finds itself left out of EU measures to alleviate shortages which have been driven by a series of crises including Covid<\/a>, the Ukraine war and potentially the Iran war<\/a> which has given the \u201cfragile system\u201d of medicine supply a \u201cbattering\u201d in recent years.<\/p>\n

For example, the EU\u2019s Critical Medicines Act, which would allow the bloc to subsidise factories in its territory which would then give preferential access to member states to drugs, \u201chas the potential to lock the UK out\u201d.<\/p>\n

The agreement will help manage ongoing shortages in areas like ADHD and epilepsy medication, as well as \u201cparticularly serious\u201d current shortfalls for drugs such as Creon, which helps people with cystic fibrosis and pancreas issues digest food, and Lanzoprazole, a common treatment for stomach ulcers and heartburn.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might be more helpful for heading off the next wave, but it could help us manage them [current shortages] as well,\u201d Dayan said.<\/p>\n

The EU was approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK and EU are set to strike a deal to help tackle post-Brexit shortages of medicines such…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":832866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[736,4414,934,2505,102,6591,3100,11853,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-832865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-adhd","tag-antibiotics","tag-brexit","tag-drugs","tag-health","tag-medication","tag-medicine","tag-politics-exclusive","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/832866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}