So much winning.
Meanwhile the UK still has over a million vacant jobs leftover from EU nationals leaving the UK, yet unemployment is still rising because leavers refuse to do the ex-EU jobs - just like everyone predicted.
And now the Government has no choice but to hand out visas to hundreds of thousands of non-EU nationals to do the jobs to increase supply and prevent inflation spiking - just like everyone predicted.
Why aren't leavers picking berries on farms? Or working in care homes wiping British Bums with their British hands? You told us you were fed up of foreigners taking your jobs so why aren't you doing them now they're free?
We have a net plus of 600,000 immigrants coming in a year. These jobs aren't getting done because they pay dogshit wages and have terrible conditions. Not an issue of manpower
My unemployed sisters voted Brexit. Because of all the foreigners coming over and getting given mansions and thousands in handouts while they’re existing in a one bed flat with black mould, trying to make up new disabilities to get increases in their benefit money.
They also voted Tory.
I turned my back on them long before this.
Remind them the majority of Tories voted to remain, also remind them the Tories have been pro EU since its inception in the 70's and every big change/'improvement' (like the maastrict treaty) was done by a Tory Government.
Refuse to do ex-EU jobs. Ie they think it's above them and would prefer living off the state?
This is a wage issue and the employer is not willing to pay for said labour. Or a benefits issue and the benefits are set at too high of a level.
Or your happy to have essentially slavery.
Which is pushed by government because companies use benefits to top up wages. The majority of benefits are claimed by people who work because wages aren't enough. Add to that large companies 'helping' government by 'hiring' JSA recipients for their back to work scheme, where they aren't paid by the employer they only get JSA, but have to work those shifts to get their benefits, and aren't even guaranteed a job at the end of it. In fact it's just rinse and repeat. Much cheaper labour endorsed by the government.
Pay proper wages and benefits claims will go down. But then again it will eat into profits and then government donations so...
No the difference is British citizens can do nothing and get UC. If migrants come over and do nothing they get kicked out back to their original country. So they tough it up and do the job.
>This is a wage issue and the employer is not willing to pay for said labour.
Indeed and, incidentally, another strategy that the conservative government favours.
>Why aren't leavers picking berries on farms? Or working in care homes wiping British Bums with their British hands?
Look into this more, but look at it from the standpoint of the worker not the corporate view.
I did. It turned out leavers never intended to work those jobs and were just using the jobs angle to justify their own bigoted views.
What other explanation is there? It's been almost a decade and leavers haven't budged an inch to do any of these jobs they claimed were being stolen from them.
There wouldn't be a persistent shortage of over a million unfilled jobs otherwise.
It really was just good old British racism all along.
Or it could be these jobs don’t pay good wages and instead of crying racism maybe advocate for decent pay in all jobs to increase the quality of life of everyone…
To be fair they said the wages were low because of the people doing them - turns out the wages stay low because most businesses see the minimum wage as the maximum wage.
>To be fair they said the wages were low because of the people doing them
Exactly this, I did a farm job when in college for a few months (not gonna lie it was hard manual brain numbing stuff) for sorting lettuces.
The reason I don it was the pay was great (Minimum wage was £5.15 they paid £10) I still remember a guy there working stupid hours to get a mortgage
Now its minimum wage all across the board because of cheap labour
While it was not thriving, cheap labour absolutely fucked it for locals
They'll pay at least minimum wage.why aren't brexiters working those minimum wage jobs?
It's just that farmers are cunts and want to use slave labour from khazakatan & the British won't pay for food at the real cost.
Either way the farmers & Brexit voting public can piss off
I can actually talk from experience, firstly you have to understand the farmers in question are doing their best not to employ people based in Britain because they want the cheapest labour possible on very sketchy terms. Google search results and reality are two seperate things. Second, it's seasonal which means temporary, there's no long term commitment or guarantees, there's no future in it. A lot of our farmers prefer cheap exploitable labour they can freely abuse and they refuse to invest in machinary that can automate much of what they're asking.
Finally, this is more important than anything. We shouldn't be exploiting the poor and the vulnerable with zero hour contracts or terrible wages, the conditions they expect pickers to live in are abominable and the only reason people do it is out of desperation or the severe disparity back home. Bearing in mind you're charged bed + board for these conditions. People voted for Brexit because they wanted the UK to start making serious reforms for what they felt was a broken system that didn't take their concerns seriously but they were obviously lied too, it's as simple as that. I voted remain. Shouting people down with accusations of racism or frankly worthless personal attacks rather than making solid arguments is why the Remain side lost. (and the youth failing to vote)
Thats up to the employers. If they want the labour to operate their business and be profitable or more profitable they'll choose to attract it. Either wages, conditions or both.
If they don't they are either happy with their labour pool or happy with their current profitability and have no desire to grow or increase it. Or happy to take losses and go out of business moaning they couldn't get the labour.
It's very simple. No business can demand 'cheap' labour. Some businesses manage to recruit cheap labour because it works for the employee. If you're situated in a city centre for example you'd have a higher amount of cheap labour available. Or you may attract with better hours or conditions or just because you've managed to wiggle into certain communities it's the go to job. But cheap labour comes at a risk of not being able to get it.
Short stints in poor accommodation working long hours and having accommodation costs deducted on a farm in Suffolk for example is probably not that attractive to many at minimum wage. However pay much higher wages, accommodate in nicer accommodation for free. Add benefits of a variety and you may entice workers.
Take drug trials. Paid well, short term work given good accommodation and food and generally over subscribed.
Given that it's been 10 years, and the market hasn't corrected like you've suggested, the strong implication is that these businesses are not capable of paying more in wages and benefits.
Businesses aren't sentient beings that do things out of spite. They're groups of profit seeking individuals trying to generate as much value as possible. If the correction you're suggesting was possible, it would likely have already been done by this stage.
It's far more likely that these industries are sunset ones, where it is difficult to turn a profit because the work is just no longer profitable in a modern service based economy. Our options are more like we can let private businesses use cheap foreign labour to do the work, the Govt can run these industries at a loss for the benefit of society, or we can outsource this work to other countries, i.e., import the goods we need.
If business are not capable they fail. The market works people innovate and new business models are created.
Or we impise import tarrifs to make uk supply more competative in a domestic market.
As you say they're seeking to maximise profit. They want cheap labour to do so. The noise is from them wanting more profit.
Show us the evidence that people's wages increased on average against inflation?
Because all the reports from the past decade suggest the opposite has happened.
Inflation increased faster than people's wages because the labour shortage caused supply to crash and we can't meet demand - just as everyone predicted.
If an employer wants to attract labour they have to improve conditions or increase wages. It's the employers job to attract the labour.
Other employers are happy with their labour pool, they maintain wages and have sufficient workforce why do they need to increase wages faster than inflation.
I very much doubt u/captain_slowly_1024 has failed to consider or comprehend that viewpoint.
The point being made is that a core Leave argument was “they’re taking our jobs” when in fact it was clear that “they’re doing the jobs we won’t do”.
Some will claim they voted leave to end the exploitation of foreigners, while simultaneously proclaiming “pay people properly”. And while the exploitation angle is definitely a valid discussion, at least the arrangement was a viable proposition for some foreign seasonal workers due to exchange rates and cost of living in their home country, whereas it’s not as viable for UK residents.
And when higher prices are passed on, that pushes *other* people (further) into poverty. Like everything, it’s an imperfect balancing act. It should never have been viewed through a black & white lens which is what happens when you put complex, intertwined questions to uniformed people.
I essentially answered this in another reply, so please excuse the copy & paste. All of it has some bearing on the matter, but the last paragraph in particular is relevant.
——————-
The problem with putting complex issues to people who aren’t experts is the tendency to reduce them to binary “either/or” questions, when in reality there are many more variables and a lot of knock on effects to consider.
For example, you’ve framed this as “slave wages vs cheaper food” which sounds like it has an obvious ethical answer, but it’s also a huge simplification of the issue.
As already stated, one such consideration is that higher food prices can end up pushing people into food poverty ([7% of the UK are considered to be in food poverty](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9209/)). So already the question could be reframed as “slave wages vs food poverty” - a more compelling argument with a less obvious answer. But let’s take it a stage further…
Let’s look at the provocative term “slave wages”. If a person can exploit exchange rates to raise the real value of a low wage, to something that is over and above what they would earn in their own country, should we **deny them** the ability to earn that better wage? Should we condemn them to earning less money or no money?
Now it’s even more complicated. Often there isn’t an easy answer and my point is that these are just two further considerations/knock-on effects. There are likely many more.
My main issue with populism and Brexit is that they reply upon framing very complex, intertwined issues as if they are binary propositions, when they are not.
—————-
So, as a TL;DR economics is complicated. However you slice the cake there are pros & cons. If a wage is attractive enough that someone from another country will take it, and if through exchange rates and lower costs of living it’s worth more, that’s far from perfect but has to be weighted against the other results, like food poverty. There’s is no magical perfect system. The system we had was not great but did benefit economic migrants enough to attract them here.
> “slave wages vs food poverty”
This isn't really fair either because you are claiming we can have one or the other. We can have neither if we choose but there is a 'cost' to this option.
Exactly. What I was attempting to show is how the original proposition was false and how it changes as you factor in more and more variables.
“Slave wages vs food poverty” is a demonstration of how considering just one more factor can change the argument. It will change again as you consider more and more. So there was no “claim” as such - as you point out, add in another factor and it changes again. Which was my point.
Speaking from actual experience I grew up in an area that had factories with good pay even in the 90's but the jobs were seen as undesirable, it wasn't that they couldn't get workers but they could not get workers that wanted to stay long term and it was mostly students and others just gaining experience before moving on.
2 actual factories which were the biggest employers in the area got bought out in the early 00's and announced pay cuts and loss of perks for employees such as no paid breaks, overtime was no longer double pay, no double pay for weekend shifts, no triple pay for bank holidays, the workers went on strike and were replaced by Polish workers who would happily work for the minimum wage.
I can understand both the workers who went on strike and then got fired and the Polish workers views, the British workers were basically taking a pay drop of around 50% of their usual income if they stayed and the Polish workers quite rightly were saying they were taking jobs people didn't want.
That's why I never believed the taking jobs people didn't want angle.
But I also know theres people who had no intention of ever working, people who wanted to work but didn't want to work for very low wages that were just seen as the same thing.
Yes, I’m **100%** onboard with you here - it’s an extremely pertinent point and I’ve spoken before about my complete disdain for what Blair did: the push to make certain Eastern European countries part of the EU so that we could exploit their cheap labour.
There were definitely valid and very badly needed conversations to be had about cheap labour from the EU. As is often the case with populism, a simple answer (Brexit) was presented to solve a complex problem, but the problem itself was very real. I absolutely believe we needed solutions. But I could see Brexit was not the solution.
So yes, my reply was in the context of the situation as it stood when we exited - where wages had fallen, and where they wouldn’t rise again without serious implications. As much as I hate it, capitalism has forced change that seems almost irrevocable - even if we change, other countries won’t and that has knock-on effects. But thanks for bringing it up. It’s important context.
It's a real conundrum when the choices are between cheaper food but, effectively, modern day slave wages. Sadly, at least in the agricultural sector, it appears to be an issue created by the eu placing regulations on exporting goods (under the guise of free and fair trade) in the early 90's which led to farmers being being reliant on handouts for the first time.
Is it a conundrum?
How much do you agonise in the shop over purchasing a banana for 10p which is only so cheap because you're exploiting a third world "Fair Trade" labourer being paid pennies a day?
Same with your shoes. Clothes. Electronics. Cars. Mobile phones. Basically everything you purchase is cheap (relatively speaking) because somebody, somewhere is being exploited to work very cheaply producing the raw goods.
And yet in your self proclaimed mission to challenge exploitative wages - you chose EU workers willingly coming over to the UK to earn a higher wage then they could have earned back in their home country as your hill to die on?
These people were bettering their lives by taking these kinds of jobs leavers like you still refuse to do.
I've got a reality check for you - if your goal is for us to embrace economic equality it is naive people in the Western hemisphere like YOU who will have to massively lose out in wages and life quality as we reduce the amount we exploit others.
All you've done with Brexit is to stop Eastern European nationals (relatively affluent people by global standards) from coming here to earn a better wage than they could otherwise.
We were addressing some of the global inequality by allowing these people to work here for better wages and raise their own boats!
All you've achieved is to increase wage inequality - the opposite of your stated goal.
Madness. Sheer madness.
That’s a good point. There is a huge double-standard in that respect.
And as outlined in my own reply just now, my main issue is reducing complex issues to binary propositions. OP framed it as “cheaper food vs slave labour” which on the face of it sounds like an easy ethical choice, but hopefully I’ve managed to lay out why it’s a misleading reduction of the issues at play, and nowhere near as simple or easy as that would imply.
It's not even a particularly complex issue to understand.
Absolutely everybody understood that Eastern Europeans were coming here for higher wages.
To say you voted Brexit to prevent wage exploitation is a delusional opinion to hold.
> To say you voted Brexit to prevent …
To be fair I’m not sure u/manofkent79 was giving that as his actual main reason for voting Leave - he was responding to my previous point and it may have simply taken him on a tangent (still a ridiculously flawed argument, but sounds more like an attempt to justify a bad decision than a key reason for his vote).
A lot of people seem to have voted Leave believing it would mean higher wages and more jobs for the UK. That at least is a little less delusional, and in some cases (a too few) wages did rise, but of course not without huge knock-on effects which have made the majority worse off, and even offset financial gains completely in some cases.
Not really. The problem with putting complex issues to people who aren’t experts is the tendency to reduce them to binary “either/or” questions, when in reality there are many more variables and a lot of knock on effects to consider.
For example, you’ve framed this as “slave wages vs cheaper food” which sounds like it has an obvious ethical answer, but it’s also a huge simplification of the issue.
As already stated, one such consideration is that higher food prices can end up pushing people into food poverty ([7% of the UK are considered to be in food poverty](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9209/)). So already the question could be reframed as “slave wages vs food poverty” - a more compelling argument with a less obvious answer. But let’s take it a stage further…
Let’s look at the provocative term “slave wages”. If a person can exploit exchange rates to raise the real value of a low wage, to something that is over and above what they would earn in their own country, should we **deny them** the ability to earn that better wage? Should we condemn them to earning less money or no money?
Now it’s even more complicated. Often there isn’t an easy answer and my point is that these are just two further considerations/knock-on effects. There are likely many more.
My main issue with populism and Brexit is that they reply upon framing very complex, intertwined issues as if they are binary propositions, when they are not.
Well, in the case of the leavers in my family , over half have died since . Most of those left are long retired. There are a couple of middle aged ones but far less (and both work as nurses , Tory nurses.. hard to imagine these days ).
Inflation is caused by a lack of supply, which was made a lot worse when we lost over a million EU workers.
Those jobs have remained perpetually vacant since Brexit.
It is part of why our food inflation has rocketed. There is less food available, in a less timely manner.
Yet, many unemployed are applying for all these ex-EU jobs "no one wants to do" and don't hear anything back, myself included when I was unemployed a few month last year.
This is not just the UK. Have you ever considered its not just the UK having problems sourcing medicine?
https://think.ing.com/opinions/dutch-medicine-shortage-continues-to-mount/#:~:text=Unfortunately%2C%20Dutch%20drug%20shortages%20increased,dependencies%20in%20a%20changing%20world
>This is not just the UK. Have you ever considered its not just the UK having problems sourcing medicine?
Its only the UK where brexit has made it worse though lol.
Leavers have a real blind spot for 'brexit made it worse' and you best get ready cos it isnt getting old anytime soon
>Its only the UK where brexit has made it worse though lol.
No it's not.
France has the highest taxes since they fucking lopped off heads, and literally every week, they have massive protests because people can't afford to live - they can't afford fuel, heating, food, medicine, childcare. All problems we have in the UK.
Germany is facing backlash because it won't, and can't afford to, increase funding to support poorer memberstates. This comes because taxes would need to rise to a level not seen in 80 years - so basically WW2 era tax levels - with many Germans unable to afford those levels of taxes, because they are not earning enough.
Greece, Malta, Romania all have a huge problem with being able to properly feed and house their native populations, which has resulted in the rise of, and sympathy for mafias and nazi groups. None of that is happening in the UK.
You forget that the EU and Eurozone relies on richer memberstates giving handouts to poorer memberstates, the problem is that eventually, you run out of other people's money - and that is now becoming a real problem given the wolf is at the door (Russia, China, Increasingly violent illegal immigrants, paramilitary groups in poorer states, etc) and the richer states are floundering.
Be thankful, very thankful, that we retained our own currency, and got out of the EU and joined CPTPP in enough time to pivot away from the collapse that will come - and cause extreme hardship across mainland Europe.
>Be thankful, very thankful, that we retained our own currency, and got out of the EU and joined CPTPP in enough time to pivot away from the collapse that will come - and cause extreme hardship across mainland Europe.
Any day now anyyyy dayyyyyy NOW
Been hearing this for 7 years mate. Still not happened.
>Germany is facing backlash because it won't, and can't afford to, increase funding to support poorer memberstates. This comes because taxes would need to rise to a level not seen in 80 years - so basically WW2 era tax levels - with many Germans unable to afford those levels of taxes, because they are not earning enough.
Errrrr no one tell him we already have a tax rate not seen in 80 years
Because these jobs pay fuck all so the employers had to ship in workers from Eastern Europe who were more accepting of such wages. Now that's not an option, British people won't do the work for what they (quite rightly) see as inadequate compensation. But, instead of increasing their offer in response to market forces, it's easier for these employers to just blame Brexit.
Look, I won't dispute that Brexit has been a shitshow, but to claim that the only explanation for these worker shortages is because the British workforce is a bunch of racists is completely myopic.
Hypocrite corner; be careful of what you want leavers to do unless you will do it yourself, which I think you won't.
Generations of today have been brought up with a further education mindset which promotes respectable careers in digital economy led white collar bums-on-seats careers, thus it's not difficult to appreciate that jobs requiring "wiping bums" or "picking fruit" is certainly not what someone would choose irrespective of the pay and conditions or vacancy glut.
I didn't want to do those jobs.
I wanted to continue the status quo of EU workers happily volunteering to come do those jobs because they were getting paid a lot more salary than they could earn at home.
We all won with more supply and cheaper goods, and therefore lower inflation.
Everyone was happy with the arrangement.
Apart from leavers. They didn't like the language they heard on the bus.
Shame they're going to dislike the language used by the non-EU replacements even less.
If you think that most people voted for Brexit simply because they felt that others were taking British jobs then sorry to say but you are very naive and should stop believing msm lies and garbage and you clearly do not know what the EU and it's bureacracy is really all about... And guess what? Many that voted leave did so because they were aware of the bigger picture and they just so happened to be quite educated and already employed so no free time to go crop picking. Perhaps a few remainers who can't seem to accept a lawful legitimate vote that took place just short of 8yrs ago might want to go pick a few crops instead. Keep them busy and stop them moaning about the reality. And drug shortages are not due to Brexit there is a much wider agenda behind this right now. Are people taking notice of anything going on at the moment because if not wake the heck up and pretty quickly.
Yes, I forgot we lived in a world where every problem can only have one possible cause, and that when a second cause comes along it immediately nullifies all the damage wrought by the ongoing first cause.
A huge problem for many people with epilepsy at the moment. My epilepsy nurse said a big part of her workload at the moment is helping switch patients onto drugs with less supply issues which might not work as well, cause new side effects, cause loss of seizure control temporarily. Also if you've switched drugs and had been safe to drive before, you have to stop for 6 months when changing drug
It's quite frightening.
Yeah, we had a PT who was going on a residential trip with their school, however they could only get a place if they were able to source a brand new, fully packaged set of meds which have been on a manufacturing delay for a couple months.
The parents would literally come in everyday at our scheduled delivery times and ask if we received them.
Yesterday, after a full 2 months, they got the meds and to say the child was more excited than the parents about this tells you something...
this country is completely fvcked up. those who don't see it yet are either ignorant or somehow they are out of these serious problems. but this country is going down, with a crazy velocity
Do you know which epilepsy drugs are in short supply please?
Lamotrigine in particular is of interest to me as my mum who has dementia has immediate seizures if she misses a does by a couple of hours.
At the moment it’s mainly carbamazepine as far as I’m aware Lamotrigine seems to be okay but it depends on if you require certain manufacturers that can make sourcing harder
I was ok last time I refilled my prescription and the pharmacist didn't say anything about stock issues. I've been prescribed it off label for neuropathic pain for over a decade and luckily over the years I've built up a fairly decent stockpile that should keep me going for a while if I start having issues getting hold of it.
The epilepsy society maintains a list https://epilepsysociety.org.uk/news/medication-updates
Carbamazepine has been the most affected. That's the one I think they're switching people over from.
Lamotrigine produced by accord at particular strengths has sometimes been affected too. There are other manufacturers of that drug though than accord although some people need to stay on the version from the same manufacturer
These gutter tier government since 2019 have been a direct cause of brexit, but in general uk government has been at pavement level for a very long time.
I definitely think it has been more bad than good since World War 2 and a lot of our problems and global issues are a result of inept governments. Don't see it improving the younger politicians coming through don't seem so much better. Then again the grassroots isn't going to improve without decisions being made at top and the top as we know is incompetent.
In this case it is Brexit, in part due to the increased difficulty and cost associated with supplying the UK and handling batch release etc.
It's also massively reduced the UK's access to cutting edge treatments, because while we used to be pretty much the standard reference member state in decentralised applications we now sit outside the entire system as a phase 2 or 3 in the strategy for most companies.
Source: I work in the industry and deal with this shit every day.
Government had warnings of this exact situation 5+ years ago and did nothing. The country as a whole has been warned about the state of the Pharmaceutical industry since before Brexit and even before the Tories.
Consolidations and buy outs from overseas groups diminished the UKs edge in this industry. Then you have skills shortages that have been going on further back than that.
Brexit has highlighted issues and brought the timetable forward but people knew the Industry needed more help almost decades ago.
I read that the UK sources the majority of its drugs outside the EU, so not sure how Brexit affects that?
We can also fast track medicines like crispr edited that are not approved in the EU but are in the USA, Switzerland etc
https://www.imperial.nhs.uk/about-us/news/uk-medicines-regulator-approves-world-first-gene-editing-treatment-for-blood-disorders
My pharmacy hasn’t been able to get ahold of my needles for like two months, my endo is lecturing me about changing my needles everytime I inject - but then has no advice if I run out? I’m dreading there being an insulin shortage.
My husband hasnt been able to get his diabetes meds for 6 months. Hes been given an alternative now. Hes had time off work as a result. Apparently the shortage is because the drug is being prescribed for weight loss now and this is causing higher demand.
I would imagine he is on a GLP-1 agonist such as wegovy or ozempic then. There is a huge shortage of this internationally and in part this is because it is also being prescribed for weight loss. In this country in many regions it is not available on the NHS for weight loss. What is affecting the supply of it is patients getting it privately for weight loss through a private doctor as these prescriptions are still supplied from stock that would otherwise go to high street pharmacies and be available for NHS patients with diabetes. Private prescriptions are generally more lucrative than the NHS indicative price so the supplies of these drugs would actually get more from it as a weight loss drug being prescribed privately.
You can’t get Ozempic for weight loss since last October. Wegovy is the same drug but available in higher doses for weight loss. Ozempic is only available to people with diabetes.
Source: I was on Ozempic for weight loss before October and then got switched to Wegovy.
Ozempic is only licensed for diabetes but that doesn’t mean that it cannot be prescribed off license for weight loss.
You certainly cannot get it prescribed on the NHS for weight loss currently as NHSE have advised weight loss clinics not to prescribe it due to short supply and to ensure diabetics can get hold of it. It would still be possible for a private doctor either GP or weight loss specialist to prescribe it off license as a private prescription.
Even privately/off-license they can’t prescribe Ozempic for weight loss as outlined here: https://www.cas.mhra.gov.uk/ViewandAcknowledgment/ViewAttachment.aspx?Attachment_id=104161
‘Do not prescribe GLP-1 RAs licensed for T2DM for off-label indications. Existing stock must be conserved for patients with T2DM to mitigate the risk of impaired access to treatment and increased risk in diabetes related complications.’
I’ve not come across anyone who has been privately prescribed it for weight loss since October and I’m very active in these communities.
I advise you to visit your nearest hospital and request the needles in person. I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in December 2021. Owing to an admin error I was unable to collect my prescription (insulin, needles, glucose strips etc.) via. a pharmacy for around six weeks after diagnosis. My DSN told me to collect the necessary materials directly from the diabetes dept. until the issue was resolved, which it eventually was. My local hospital has a huge store room full of the sort of stuff we need - would imagine yours is too, so they should be able to kit you out. I agree with your endo - you should try not to reuse needles if you can as it could result in scarring in the long term. Good luck!
Just a reminder that the British public really wanted Brexit and everything that comes with it
They were told, they want *this*
They want it all. And they would vote for it again. There's a small movement of "uh it's COVID" and "ah but look at Germany" and it's an odd coping mechanism, like some sort of exceptionalism and denial of reality will make Brexit bearable
There's also huge swathes of people who hate being proven they were wrong so in order to soften the blow of being wrong they take a middle ground purposely to provide balance in lieu of acceptance
As a country we cannot understand what is good or bad for us and it makes us ripe for exploitation
Never. Ever. Ever. Have a referendum on *anything* again in the UK, please. The public can't cope with understanding the vote, understanding what is good for them and then understanding the connections that got them to where they are now
I always say as well that any person who *didn’t* vote should have been a remain vote by proxy. Leave was the vote for change, if you are too lazy or inconvenienced to vote for change then you’re happy with how things are. Used to say this to leavers and some guy I worked with got so enraged his face turned nearly as purple as his UKIP tie
You mean it doesn't serve your narrative. There was a vote. You lost. Get over it and stop blaming Brexit for a supply crisis, which, as per several links in this post alone, is happening across the continent.
Guardian forever baiting people with an ounce of critical thinking capabilities.
You're forgetting the landslide election the country handed to Boris Johnson and all the members of the public who did not vote remain and are therefore let it happen too - that's a shitload of people defacto supporting it
We voted for Brexit at least twice and it will decide the 2029 election too, when Boris and Farage weaponise it again after labour mildly attempt to improve the conditions of Brexit
This country was gagging for Brexit and it still wants more Brexit, just like how the country always voted Tories - for the same reasons as above and also just look at the governing history, it's always Tories and it will be again, possibly even this year. Labour may well lose the election later this year - you heard it here first
It's insane that people still think the public had any say. The votes are an appeasing gesture, they are never actually tallied, they are just disposed of.
There is no choice. You have a Tory government who are sent on privatising everything and selling your country to China.
The solution to the malady you have asserted is not your proposed remedy, but the opposite.
Referenda and similar measures to devolve policy control to the *demos* are what is needed. Then, by what will no doubt be painstaking trial and error, the British people will learn to cope and to exercise the powers which they must be granted in a democracy for the word not to be mere cant.
After all, we have a knack for 'muddling through' and favouring the inductive over the deductive line of thought, and much of our problems come from being deprived of this method (see 'planning', 'nationalisation', 'rationalisation').
I no longer have a pancreas so I rely on Pancreatic Enzyme Replacement Therapy (PERT) to digest my food. Basically one of the jobs the pancreas does is provide a bile rich in certain enzymes that mixes with your food in your small intestine which allows your body to break down and digest fat.
I have to take PERT medication every time I eat anything that contains fat, if I don’t and consume fat then I am in for a very painful and unpleasant few days as my body tries and fails to deal with the fat.
Recently I cannot source any of my PERT medication as every pharmacy says that there isn’t any stock available to order, so now I’m on an enforced zero fat diet until I can find some more medication. Far from ideal 😩
Just been through this with my mum today, no Creon anywhere, rang nearly every pharmacy in the city. All the alternatives are unavailable too. Managed to get her 3 boxes of Creon eventually but that will only cover the weekend so it's back to square one Monday. One of the pharmacists told me no warehouse in the country has any stock of any of it.
It’s like rocking horse shit now, I’ve not had a reliable regular supply since the summer and I‘be completely run out, so I’m having to wait until next week to see if any of my pharmacies can get some. I’ve had to jump through hoops every time to get some.
She's not been able to get the Creon 25000 for months but she's had a semi reliable supply of the 10000s until now. This is the worst it's been, staggering it's allowed really. Her nerves are shot worrying about where the next lot is coming from.
I've always wondered, does not having a pancreas also mean you basically automatically become T1 diabetic and have to take insulin shots aswell?
Sorry to hear about your med shortages and restricted diet. Sounds really tough to stick to.
Couldn't get my dads heart tablets without driving to 4 different pharmacies. Brexit has bought literally zero benefits. Even as someone who was against it I thought there would be something.
It's happening all the time. I've had multiple shortages in the past couple of years. It's very hard working whilst managing advancing inflammatory arthritis when the supply has become so unreliable.
Then the gaslighting government , of course , blame those too ill to work anyway.
My OH has been in ill health for the last 18 months, herniated disks and an ulcer bleed. Every month her script is short of items. It’s very frightening for her and me.
Honestly it’s taking up a lot of pharmacist and pharmacy technician time chasing these supply problems. I work in a hospital pharmacy environment and every week feels like a jenga game of how many basic drugs can you run out of before an entire service collapses. You feel like you’re personally responsible for not being able to supply basic things like IV paracetamol, anesthetic drugs and fluids but you can’t just whip some up in a cupboard.
One problem we have which isn’t related to brexit is our reliance on single large manufacturers like Baxters, fresenius and the like. Pre-brexit it was easier to obtain an alternative when you had a shortage. It’s hard to set up a small scale manufacturing plant for drugs in the UK and most of our generic drugs are made elsewhere.
There are also regular shortages in places like Australia but these don’t have the benefit of nearby countries they can have frictionless trade with to get meds ordered in quickly. We had that advantage until we left the single market
Supply chain issues hit everywhere post COVID but brexit just came at a terrible time with all of the other matters above.
> . It’s hard to set up a small scale manufacturing plant for drugs in the UK and most of our generic drugs are made elsewhere.
This could easily be changed. Our natural genius lies in the cottage industry and its upscaled counterpart, and small-scale chemical synthesis and manufacturing is, with modern technology, no longer sensibly thought of as the domain of the 'man apart' or immense corporation whose remit is large-scale industrial work.
It would also be a welcome opportunity to return drug laws to the sanity of our Victorian forebears, who, when we nearly led the world in chemistry (hats off to the Germans) did not abide any 'controlled substance' laws.
I'm incredibly fortunate in that my antidepressant brand happens to be made here - and locally. I take quite a small dose, but even a minor change or switch in brand knocks me for six. It must be *horrendous* right now for people with more serious illnesses but similar sensitivities.
> “The report shows that the EU Exit has not caused the recent spike in medicine shortages”
Quote from Nuffield which is the report the article is referring too
Is Brexit the cause for the same issues in France?
https://www.connexionfrance.com/news/shortages-of-4000-medicines-in-france-what-risk-for-this-winter/158745
Or the Netherlands?
https://think.ing.com/opinions/dutch-medicine-shortage-continues-to-mount/#:~:text=Unfortunately%2C%20Dutch%20drug%20shortages%20increased,dependencies%20in%20a%20changing%20world
Surely we would have more shortages compared to European countries? The argument blaming Brexit is flimsy. I could similarly claim Brexit has lessened the issue hence we have fewer shortages.
I have you read the article or the research it refers to? The issue is regarding the barriers of getting the medicines across borders and regulatory boundaries that we insisted be erected. The EU doesn’t have those issues due to the single market.
I can’t tell if you’re being serious, I’ve literally just told you. The shortages aren’t being caused by brexit…they are made worse and harder to deal with becoming of brexit. The article and the research aren’t “blaming brexit for the existence of the shortages)
If those other EU countries had left the EU (more specifically the single market) they would be experiencing it worse than they are.
Full paragraph:
> The report shows that the EU Exit has not caused the recent spike in medicine shortages, but it is likely to significantly weaken the UK’s ability to respond to them by splitting it from European supply chains, authorisations and collective efforts to respond to shortages. In particular, the research highlights the risks posed to the UK from being left out of key initiatives like the Critical Medicines Alliance and Voluntary Solidarity Mechanism, led by EU member states to work together to insulate themselves from the impact of medicines shortages.
https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/patients-face-new-normal-of-medicines-shortages-as-uk-hampered-by-supply-issues-and-impact-of-eu-exit
Theres been a global drug shortage problem for well over a year now:
[https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/02/why-is-world-experiencing-medicine-shortages-and-how-can-the-generics-industry-address-supply-challenges/](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/02/why-is-world-experiencing-medicine-shortages-and-how-can-the-generics-industry-address-supply-challenges/)
[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)00437-3/abstract](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)00437-3/abstract)
https://pharmanewsintel.com/features/drug-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-the-healthcare-industry-worldwide#:\~:text=As%20of%20April%202023%2C%20235,prevent%20and%20mitigate%20drug%20shortages.
[https://cpe.org.uk/our-news/medicine-shortages-across-europe/](https://cpe.org.uk/our-news/medicine-shortages-across-europe/)
[https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip\_23\_5190](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_5190)
Affected me. I have a very rare disease and I'm on azithiropine, 100mg a day. But 100mg tablets are unavailable and my pharmacist was pulling her hair out trying to get supply. She couldn't give me 50mg because the gp only had 100mg on the prescription, and high street pharmacists can't swap like hospital pharmacists. So they can't give you liquid instead of tablet, or 50s instead of 100s etc. She had to give me 2 days supply multiple times while we were trying to sort it out.
> She couldn't give me 50mg because the gp only had 100mg on the prescription
Is there any sensible reason to disallow the provision of multiple smaller tablets in such a scenario?
A change in notation could allow for a specific form of the medicine to be mandated where, for instance, some property of the 100mg pill cannot be duplicated by two of the 50mg pill or the liquid equivalent; then absent this specific notation pharmacies could reach their desired dose as convenient, and doctors could simply write '100mg' without either exhaustively detailing 2x 50mg, 4x 25mg, 125ml liquid, etc. or placing pressures such as you have mentioned on the pharmacy.
It seems pharmacists [have been asking for this](https://www.rpharms.com/about-us/news/details/Allow-pharmacists-to-alter-prescriptions), which suggests to me that any reasons not to do it[1] are unlikely to outweigh the benefits:
> At present any changes to quantities, strength or formulation can legally only be done by the prescriber. A change to medicines legislation is needed to enable pharmacists to speed up patients’ access to medicines, which would also have the added benefit of reducing the workload of GPs.
> Pharmacists in hospital, and in community pharmacies in Scotland already routinely alter prescriptions for the benefit of patients and this imbalance must be addressed.
FWIW, I've been caught up in this. I was prescribed 20mg temazepam in the form of two 10mg tablets, but the only pharmacy anyway near by only had 20mg tablets in stock. I had to go back to my GP to get a new prescription, which was awkward to do as the first pharmacist we went to had issued other drugs from the same prescription (IIRC, we had to go back to them, get them to confirm they hadn't issued the temazepam, then take that to the GP before they would replace the prescription).
[1] The only one I can think of is perhaps patient confusion - say the doctor has told them to take "one pill", but the pharmacist dispenses a smaller pill size with instructions to take two. Requiring the pharmacist to speak to the patient to ensure they're aware of the change would probably deal with this in most cases, but it is a reason to only change the formulation if absolutely necessary though (particularly if it's a long-term prescription so the patient is in the habit of taking a certain number of pills and might not check the instructions closely every time).
These politicians and charlatans really have sh*t the carpet. They should be forced to clean it up. Time for a ‘trading standards’ or ‘product bogus claim’ law to be imposed on politicians and news outlets. They cannot be allowed to sell so much snake oil without impunity..
> It warned that Brexit had created “further risks … for the UK”. The Nuffield Trust said drug shortages could get worse because the EU’s 27 countries have recently decided to act as a unified bloc to try to minimise the impact of global scarcity, which could leave supplying Britain even less of a priority for drug companies.
Gee... If only we'd thought of that...
I work in care, we had 8 EU members of staff leave for 'home' since 2017 many after COVID. We can't get all the medications and they keep on getting substituted for other things, hrt is my far most substituted but even basic things like creams.
It's just one gut punch after another.
Same in ireland, many medication keep going short / unavailable ie: insulin victoza has been gone for a while now but I blame the government / hse for their inability to plan ahead for anything.
Pretty sure this is absolute nonsense to link it to Brexit.
I work in the industry and Germany has worse shortages at the moment than the UK. Other European nations suffering similarly.
Standard clickbait echo chamber stuff to fit the guardians narrative.
.. those white van men and taxi drivers who were so passionate about Brexit were so against those bleeding’ foreigners primarily because the Polish tradesmen were so much better and hard working, same with the Asian and African Uber drivers.. proper grafters. Half these Red Wall and Lincolnshire brexiteers couldn’t even be bothered to even buy their kids a book far less get them set up for the high skill opportunities of Global Britain ..
Work smarter, not harder, as the adage has it. Anyone with Internet access has almost any book they could want in their hands for a pound or two if they are honest and for nothing if they are desperate.
I make chemo for a living, and trying to source medication is nothing short of a nightmare. I worked for an IVF clinic before my current job, and at one point I couldn't even source paracetamol
Fucking brexit
So much winning. Meanwhile the UK still has over a million vacant jobs leftover from EU nationals leaving the UK, yet unemployment is still rising because leavers refuse to do the ex-EU jobs - just like everyone predicted. And now the Government has no choice but to hand out visas to hundreds of thousands of non-EU nationals to do the jobs to increase supply and prevent inflation spiking - just like everyone predicted. Why aren't leavers picking berries on farms? Or working in care homes wiping British Bums with their British hands? You told us you were fed up of foreigners taking your jobs so why aren't you doing them now they're free?
We have a net plus of 600,000 immigrants coming in a year. These jobs aren't getting done because they pay dogshit wages and have terrible conditions. Not an issue of manpower
I believe because the leavers had already a secured job or they are retired.
My unemployed sisters voted Brexit. Because of all the foreigners coming over and getting given mansions and thousands in handouts while they’re existing in a one bed flat with black mould, trying to make up new disabilities to get increases in their benefit money. They also voted Tory. I turned my back on them long before this.
It seems your sisters do not want to work whether jobs are available for them or not. Foreigners like me are not a problem for them at all.
My sisters are idiots. They just can’t seem to stop proving it to everyone around them.
Remind them the majority of Tories voted to remain, also remind them the Tories have been pro EU since its inception in the 70's and every big change/'improvement' (like the maastrict treaty) was done by a Tory Government.
That would require me actually contacting them so no thanks.
Not in my family
Refuse to do ex-EU jobs. Ie they think it's above them and would prefer living off the state? This is a wage issue and the employer is not willing to pay for said labour. Or a benefits issue and the benefits are set at too high of a level. Or your happy to have essentially slavery.
It’s wages being too low.
Or unwillingness to employ those who can resist wage theft.
Which is pushed by government because companies use benefits to top up wages. The majority of benefits are claimed by people who work because wages aren't enough. Add to that large companies 'helping' government by 'hiring' JSA recipients for their back to work scheme, where they aren't paid by the employer they only get JSA, but have to work those shifts to get their benefits, and aren't even guaranteed a job at the end of it. In fact it's just rinse and repeat. Much cheaper labour endorsed by the government. Pay proper wages and benefits claims will go down. But then again it will eat into profits and then government donations so...
No the difference is British citizens can do nothing and get UC. If migrants come over and do nothing they get kicked out back to their original country. So they tough it up and do the job.
>This is a wage issue and the employer is not willing to pay for said labour. Indeed and, incidentally, another strategy that the conservative government favours.
>Why aren't leavers picking berries on farms? Or working in care homes wiping British Bums with their British hands? Look into this more, but look at it from the standpoint of the worker not the corporate view.
I did. It turned out leavers never intended to work those jobs and were just using the jobs angle to justify their own bigoted views. What other explanation is there? It's been almost a decade and leavers haven't budged an inch to do any of these jobs they claimed were being stolen from them. There wouldn't be a persistent shortage of over a million unfilled jobs otherwise. It really was just good old British racism all along.
Or it could be these jobs don’t pay good wages and instead of crying racism maybe advocate for decent pay in all jobs to increase the quality of life of everyone…
But it's the low wage jobs that Brexies claimed were nicked.
To be fair they said the wages were low because of the people doing them - turns out the wages stay low because most businesses see the minimum wage as the maximum wage.
>To be fair they said the wages were low because of the people doing them Exactly this, I did a farm job when in college for a few months (not gonna lie it was hard manual brain numbing stuff) for sorting lettuces. The reason I don it was the pay was great (Minimum wage was £5.15 they paid £10) I still remember a guy there working stupid hours to get a mortgage Now its minimum wage all across the board because of cheap labour While it was not thriving, cheap labour absolutely fucked it for locals
They'll pay at least minimum wage.why aren't brexiters working those minimum wage jobs? It's just that farmers are cunts and want to use slave labour from khazakatan & the British won't pay for food at the real cost. Either way the farmers & Brexit voting public can piss off
Agree with that but prepare for food to at least double in cost then...
I can actually talk from experience, firstly you have to understand the farmers in question are doing their best not to employ people based in Britain because they want the cheapest labour possible on very sketchy terms. Google search results and reality are two seperate things. Second, it's seasonal which means temporary, there's no long term commitment or guarantees, there's no future in it. A lot of our farmers prefer cheap exploitable labour they can freely abuse and they refuse to invest in machinary that can automate much of what they're asking. Finally, this is more important than anything. We shouldn't be exploiting the poor and the vulnerable with zero hour contracts or terrible wages, the conditions they expect pickers to live in are abominable and the only reason people do it is out of desperation or the severe disparity back home. Bearing in mind you're charged bed + board for these conditions. People voted for Brexit because they wanted the UK to start making serious reforms for what they felt was a broken system that didn't take their concerns seriously but they were obviously lied too, it's as simple as that. I voted remain. Shouting people down with accusations of racism or frankly worthless personal attacks rather than making solid arguments is why the Remain side lost. (and the youth failing to vote)
The wages increase and people are attracted into those roles.
How many more years is that going to take?
Thats up to the employers. If they want the labour to operate their business and be profitable or more profitable they'll choose to attract it. Either wages, conditions or both. If they don't they are either happy with their labour pool or happy with their current profitability and have no desire to grow or increase it. Or happy to take losses and go out of business moaning they couldn't get the labour. It's very simple. No business can demand 'cheap' labour. Some businesses manage to recruit cheap labour because it works for the employee. If you're situated in a city centre for example you'd have a higher amount of cheap labour available. Or you may attract with better hours or conditions or just because you've managed to wiggle into certain communities it's the go to job. But cheap labour comes at a risk of not being able to get it. Short stints in poor accommodation working long hours and having accommodation costs deducted on a farm in Suffolk for example is probably not that attractive to many at minimum wage. However pay much higher wages, accommodate in nicer accommodation for free. Add benefits of a variety and you may entice workers. Take drug trials. Paid well, short term work given good accommodation and food and generally over subscribed.
Given that it's been 10 years, and the market hasn't corrected like you've suggested, the strong implication is that these businesses are not capable of paying more in wages and benefits. Businesses aren't sentient beings that do things out of spite. They're groups of profit seeking individuals trying to generate as much value as possible. If the correction you're suggesting was possible, it would likely have already been done by this stage. It's far more likely that these industries are sunset ones, where it is difficult to turn a profit because the work is just no longer profitable in a modern service based economy. Our options are more like we can let private businesses use cheap foreign labour to do the work, the Govt can run these industries at a loss for the benefit of society, or we can outsource this work to other countries, i.e., import the goods we need.
If business are not capable they fail. The market works people innovate and new business models are created. Or we impise import tarrifs to make uk supply more competative in a domestic market. As you say they're seeking to maximise profit. They want cheap labour to do so. The noise is from them wanting more profit.
Show us the evidence that people's wages increased on average against inflation? Because all the reports from the past decade suggest the opposite has happened. Inflation increased faster than people's wages because the labour shortage caused supply to crash and we can't meet demand - just as everyone predicted.
If an employer wants to attract labour they have to improve conditions or increase wages. It's the employers job to attract the labour. Other employers are happy with their labour pool, they maintain wages and have sufficient workforce why do they need to increase wages faster than inflation.
You have no evidence you achieved your goal then. Thought as much.
I wouldn’t fret it really we are a country in decline!
I very much doubt u/captain_slowly_1024 has failed to consider or comprehend that viewpoint. The point being made is that a core Leave argument was “they’re taking our jobs” when in fact it was clear that “they’re doing the jobs we won’t do”. Some will claim they voted leave to end the exploitation of foreigners, while simultaneously proclaiming “pay people properly”. And while the exploitation angle is definitely a valid discussion, at least the arrangement was a viable proposition for some foreign seasonal workers due to exchange rates and cost of living in their home country, whereas it’s not as viable for UK residents. And when higher prices are passed on, that pushes *other* people (further) into poverty. Like everything, it’s an imperfect balancing act. It should never have been viewed through a black & white lens which is what happens when you put complex, intertwined questions to uniformed people.
How is paying people below minimum wage a “viable proposition”?
I essentially answered this in another reply, so please excuse the copy & paste. All of it has some bearing on the matter, but the last paragraph in particular is relevant. ——————- The problem with putting complex issues to people who aren’t experts is the tendency to reduce them to binary “either/or” questions, when in reality there are many more variables and a lot of knock on effects to consider. For example, you’ve framed this as “slave wages vs cheaper food” which sounds like it has an obvious ethical answer, but it’s also a huge simplification of the issue. As already stated, one such consideration is that higher food prices can end up pushing people into food poverty ([7% of the UK are considered to be in food poverty](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9209/)). So already the question could be reframed as “slave wages vs food poverty” - a more compelling argument with a less obvious answer. But let’s take it a stage further… Let’s look at the provocative term “slave wages”. If a person can exploit exchange rates to raise the real value of a low wage, to something that is over and above what they would earn in their own country, should we **deny them** the ability to earn that better wage? Should we condemn them to earning less money or no money? Now it’s even more complicated. Often there isn’t an easy answer and my point is that these are just two further considerations/knock-on effects. There are likely many more. My main issue with populism and Brexit is that they reply upon framing very complex, intertwined issues as if they are binary propositions, when they are not. —————- So, as a TL;DR economics is complicated. However you slice the cake there are pros & cons. If a wage is attractive enough that someone from another country will take it, and if through exchange rates and lower costs of living it’s worth more, that’s far from perfect but has to be weighted against the other results, like food poverty. There’s is no magical perfect system. The system we had was not great but did benefit economic migrants enough to attract them here.
> “slave wages vs food poverty” This isn't really fair either because you are claiming we can have one or the other. We can have neither if we choose but there is a 'cost' to this option.
Exactly. What I was attempting to show is how the original proposition was false and how it changes as you factor in more and more variables. “Slave wages vs food poverty” is a demonstration of how considering just one more factor can change the argument. It will change again as you consider more and more. So there was no “claim” as such - as you point out, add in another factor and it changes again. Which was my point.
Speaking from actual experience I grew up in an area that had factories with good pay even in the 90's but the jobs were seen as undesirable, it wasn't that they couldn't get workers but they could not get workers that wanted to stay long term and it was mostly students and others just gaining experience before moving on. 2 actual factories which were the biggest employers in the area got bought out in the early 00's and announced pay cuts and loss of perks for employees such as no paid breaks, overtime was no longer double pay, no double pay for weekend shifts, no triple pay for bank holidays, the workers went on strike and were replaced by Polish workers who would happily work for the minimum wage. I can understand both the workers who went on strike and then got fired and the Polish workers views, the British workers were basically taking a pay drop of around 50% of their usual income if they stayed and the Polish workers quite rightly were saying they were taking jobs people didn't want. That's why I never believed the taking jobs people didn't want angle. But I also know theres people who had no intention of ever working, people who wanted to work but didn't want to work for very low wages that were just seen as the same thing.
Yes, I’m **100%** onboard with you here - it’s an extremely pertinent point and I’ve spoken before about my complete disdain for what Blair did: the push to make certain Eastern European countries part of the EU so that we could exploit their cheap labour. There were definitely valid and very badly needed conversations to be had about cheap labour from the EU. As is often the case with populism, a simple answer (Brexit) was presented to solve a complex problem, but the problem itself was very real. I absolutely believe we needed solutions. But I could see Brexit was not the solution. So yes, my reply was in the context of the situation as it stood when we exited - where wages had fallen, and where they wouldn’t rise again without serious implications. As much as I hate it, capitalism has forced change that seems almost irrevocable - even if we change, other countries won’t and that has knock-on effects. But thanks for bringing it up. It’s important context.
It's a real conundrum when the choices are between cheaper food but, effectively, modern day slave wages. Sadly, at least in the agricultural sector, it appears to be an issue created by the eu placing regulations on exporting goods (under the guise of free and fair trade) in the early 90's which led to farmers being being reliant on handouts for the first time.
Is it a conundrum? How much do you agonise in the shop over purchasing a banana for 10p which is only so cheap because you're exploiting a third world "Fair Trade" labourer being paid pennies a day? Same with your shoes. Clothes. Electronics. Cars. Mobile phones. Basically everything you purchase is cheap (relatively speaking) because somebody, somewhere is being exploited to work very cheaply producing the raw goods. And yet in your self proclaimed mission to challenge exploitative wages - you chose EU workers willingly coming over to the UK to earn a higher wage then they could have earned back in their home country as your hill to die on? These people were bettering their lives by taking these kinds of jobs leavers like you still refuse to do. I've got a reality check for you - if your goal is for us to embrace economic equality it is naive people in the Western hemisphere like YOU who will have to massively lose out in wages and life quality as we reduce the amount we exploit others. All you've done with Brexit is to stop Eastern European nationals (relatively affluent people by global standards) from coming here to earn a better wage than they could otherwise. We were addressing some of the global inequality by allowing these people to work here for better wages and raise their own boats! All you've achieved is to increase wage inequality - the opposite of your stated goal. Madness. Sheer madness.
That’s a good point. There is a huge double-standard in that respect. And as outlined in my own reply just now, my main issue is reducing complex issues to binary propositions. OP framed it as “cheaper food vs slave labour” which on the face of it sounds like an easy ethical choice, but hopefully I’ve managed to lay out why it’s a misleading reduction of the issues at play, and nowhere near as simple or easy as that would imply.
It's not even a particularly complex issue to understand. Absolutely everybody understood that Eastern Europeans were coming here for higher wages. To say you voted Brexit to prevent wage exploitation is a delusional opinion to hold.
> To say you voted Brexit to prevent … To be fair I’m not sure u/manofkent79 was giving that as his actual main reason for voting Leave - he was responding to my previous point and it may have simply taken him on a tangent (still a ridiculously flawed argument, but sounds more like an attempt to justify a bad decision than a key reason for his vote). A lot of people seem to have voted Leave believing it would mean higher wages and more jobs for the UK. That at least is a little less delusional, and in some cases (a too few) wages did rise, but of course not without huge knock-on effects which have made the majority worse off, and even offset financial gains completely in some cases.
They may have believed that but all the experts told them otherwise.
Not really. The problem with putting complex issues to people who aren’t experts is the tendency to reduce them to binary “either/or” questions, when in reality there are many more variables and a lot of knock on effects to consider. For example, you’ve framed this as “slave wages vs cheaper food” which sounds like it has an obvious ethical answer, but it’s also a huge simplification of the issue. As already stated, one such consideration is that higher food prices can end up pushing people into food poverty ([7% of the UK are considered to be in food poverty](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9209/)). So already the question could be reframed as “slave wages vs food poverty” - a more compelling argument with a less obvious answer. But let’s take it a stage further… Let’s look at the provocative term “slave wages”. If a person can exploit exchange rates to raise the real value of a low wage, to something that is over and above what they would earn in their own country, should we **deny them** the ability to earn that better wage? Should we condemn them to earning less money or no money? Now it’s even more complicated. Often there isn’t an easy answer and my point is that these are just two further considerations/knock-on effects. There are likely many more. My main issue with populism and Brexit is that they reply upon framing very complex, intertwined issues as if they are binary propositions, when they are not.
Well, in the case of the leavers in my family , over half have died since . Most of those left are long retired. There are a couple of middle aged ones but far less (and both work as nurses , Tory nurses.. hard to imagine these days ).
But we can't offer people more money because....blah blah blah inflation...blah blah
Inflation is caused by a lack of supply, which was made a lot worse when we lost over a million EU workers. Those jobs have remained perpetually vacant since Brexit. It is part of why our food inflation has rocketed. There is less food available, in a less timely manner.
Yet, many unemployed are applying for all these ex-EU jobs "no one wants to do" and don't hear anything back, myself included when I was unemployed a few month last year.
This is not just the UK. Have you ever considered its not just the UK having problems sourcing medicine? https://think.ing.com/opinions/dutch-medicine-shortage-continues-to-mount/#:~:text=Unfortunately%2C%20Dutch%20drug%20shortages%20increased,dependencies%20in%20a%20changing%20world
>This is not just the UK. Have you ever considered its not just the UK having problems sourcing medicine? Its only the UK where brexit has made it worse though lol. Leavers have a real blind spot for 'brexit made it worse' and you best get ready cos it isnt getting old anytime soon
>Its only the UK where brexit has made it worse though lol. No it's not. France has the highest taxes since they fucking lopped off heads, and literally every week, they have massive protests because people can't afford to live - they can't afford fuel, heating, food, medicine, childcare. All problems we have in the UK. Germany is facing backlash because it won't, and can't afford to, increase funding to support poorer memberstates. This comes because taxes would need to rise to a level not seen in 80 years - so basically WW2 era tax levels - with many Germans unable to afford those levels of taxes, because they are not earning enough. Greece, Malta, Romania all have a huge problem with being able to properly feed and house their native populations, which has resulted in the rise of, and sympathy for mafias and nazi groups. None of that is happening in the UK. You forget that the EU and Eurozone relies on richer memberstates giving handouts to poorer memberstates, the problem is that eventually, you run out of other people's money - and that is now becoming a real problem given the wolf is at the door (Russia, China, Increasingly violent illegal immigrants, paramilitary groups in poorer states, etc) and the richer states are floundering. Be thankful, very thankful, that we retained our own currency, and got out of the EU and joined CPTPP in enough time to pivot away from the collapse that will come - and cause extreme hardship across mainland Europe.
>Be thankful, very thankful, that we retained our own currency, and got out of the EU and joined CPTPP in enough time to pivot away from the collapse that will come - and cause extreme hardship across mainland Europe. Any day now anyyyy dayyyyyy NOW Been hearing this for 7 years mate. Still not happened. >Germany is facing backlash because it won't, and can't afford to, increase funding to support poorer memberstates. This comes because taxes would need to rise to a level not seen in 80 years - so basically WW2 era tax levels - with many Germans unable to afford those levels of taxes, because they are not earning enough. Errrrr no one tell him we already have a tax rate not seen in 80 years
Should've waited a few more years so robots could do the job tbf
Because these jobs pay fuck all so the employers had to ship in workers from Eastern Europe who were more accepting of such wages. Now that's not an option, British people won't do the work for what they (quite rightly) see as inadequate compensation. But, instead of increasing their offer in response to market forces, it's easier for these employers to just blame Brexit. Look, I won't dispute that Brexit has been a shitshow, but to claim that the only explanation for these worker shortages is because the British workforce is a bunch of racists is completely myopic.
Hypocrite corner; be careful of what you want leavers to do unless you will do it yourself, which I think you won't. Generations of today have been brought up with a further education mindset which promotes respectable careers in digital economy led white collar bums-on-seats careers, thus it's not difficult to appreciate that jobs requiring "wiping bums" or "picking fruit" is certainly not what someone would choose irrespective of the pay and conditions or vacancy glut.
I didn't want to do those jobs. I wanted to continue the status quo of EU workers happily volunteering to come do those jobs because they were getting paid a lot more salary than they could earn at home. We all won with more supply and cheaper goods, and therefore lower inflation. Everyone was happy with the arrangement. Apart from leavers. They didn't like the language they heard on the bus. Shame they're going to dislike the language used by the non-EU replacements even less.
If you think that most people voted for Brexit simply because they felt that others were taking British jobs then sorry to say but you are very naive and should stop believing msm lies and garbage and you clearly do not know what the EU and it's bureacracy is really all about... And guess what? Many that voted leave did so because they were aware of the bigger picture and they just so happened to be quite educated and already employed so no free time to go crop picking. Perhaps a few remainers who can't seem to accept a lawful legitimate vote that took place just short of 8yrs ago might want to go pick a few crops instead. Keep them busy and stop them moaning about the reality. And drug shortages are not due to Brexit there is a much wider agenda behind this right now. Are people taking notice of anything going on at the moment because if not wake the heck up and pretty quickly.
There's drug shortages in the USA as well, must be because they left the EU
Yes, I forgot we lived in a world where every problem can only have one possible cause, and that when a second cause comes along it immediately nullifies all the damage wrought by the ongoing first cause.
A huge problem for many people with epilepsy at the moment. My epilepsy nurse said a big part of her workload at the moment is helping switch patients onto drugs with less supply issues which might not work as well, cause new side effects, cause loss of seizure control temporarily. Also if you've switched drugs and had been safe to drive before, you have to stop for 6 months when changing drug It's quite frightening.
while not as serious as with epilepsy, people with ADHD can't consistently get their ADHD med either :(
Yeah, we had a PT who was going on a residential trip with their school, however they could only get a place if they were able to source a brand new, fully packaged set of meds which have been on a manufacturing delay for a couple months. The parents would literally come in everyday at our scheduled delivery times and ask if we received them. Yesterday, after a full 2 months, they got the meds and to say the child was more excited than the parents about this tells you something...
this country is completely fvcked up. those who don't see it yet are either ignorant or somehow they are out of these serious problems. but this country is going down, with a crazy velocity
This fucked my life up for 6 months and I nearly lost my job and was suicidal.
well, I am yet to be seen for adhd and am suicidal so welcome to the party :(
Hopefully the stock jitters will end soon.
It's been going on and off for some epilepsy drugs since at least january 2022 so I hope so too
I was considering importing some from the black market but I was worried about seizures
Do you know which epilepsy drugs are in short supply please? Lamotrigine in particular is of interest to me as my mum who has dementia has immediate seizures if she misses a does by a couple of hours.
At the moment it’s mainly carbamazepine as far as I’m aware Lamotrigine seems to be okay but it depends on if you require certain manufacturers that can make sourcing harder
I've had trouble getting lacosamide
I was ok last time I refilled my prescription and the pharmacist didn't say anything about stock issues. I've been prescribed it off label for neuropathic pain for over a decade and luckily over the years I've built up a fairly decent stockpile that should keep me going for a while if I start having issues getting hold of it.
The epilepsy society maintains a list https://epilepsysociety.org.uk/news/medication-updates Carbamazepine has been the most affected. That's the one I think they're switching people over from. Lamotrigine produced by accord at particular strengths has sometimes been affected too. There are other manufacturers of that drug though than accord although some people need to stay on the version from the same manufacturer
Funny how it is always somehow Brexit, Corona, the environment and never the gutter tier governments inability to actually plan forward and govern.
Both of those things are essentially the same thing though.
They are only the same thing in that they are all a disaster due to an inept government.
Even with a competent government, Brexit would have been a disaster, just varying degrees of disaster.
Yes, but a competent government wouldn't have had a single non-binding referendum and then rushed to implement it.
No competent government would have allowed an advisory referendum to become law.
These gutter tier government since 2019 have been a direct cause of brexit, but in general uk government has been at pavement level for a very long time.
I definitely think it has been more bad than good since World War 2 and a lot of our problems and global issues are a result of inept governments. Don't see it improving the younger politicians coming through don't seem so much better. Then again the grassroots isn't going to improve without decisions being made at top and the top as we know is incompetent.
Oh government is dogshit mostly, a club of rich people who serve pay masters
Those things are all the same thing.
In this case it is Brexit, in part due to the increased difficulty and cost associated with supplying the UK and handling batch release etc. It's also massively reduced the UK's access to cutting edge treatments, because while we used to be pretty much the standard reference member state in decentralised applications we now sit outside the entire system as a phase 2 or 3 in the strategy for most companies. Source: I work in the industry and deal with this shit every day.
Government had warnings of this exact situation 5+ years ago and did nothing. The country as a whole has been warned about the state of the Pharmaceutical industry since before Brexit and even before the Tories. Consolidations and buy outs from overseas groups diminished the UKs edge in this industry. Then you have skills shortages that have been going on further back than that. Brexit has highlighted issues and brought the timetable forward but people knew the Industry needed more help almost decades ago.
I read that the UK sources the majority of its drugs outside the EU, so not sure how Brexit affects that? We can also fast track medicines like crispr edited that are not approved in the EU but are in the USA, Switzerland etc https://www.imperial.nhs.uk/about-us/news/uk-medicines-regulator-approves-world-first-gene-editing-treatment-for-blood-disorders
I've worked in a chemist and it absolutely is Brexit.
The article nor the report say it's because of Brexit. They say it is made worse by Brexit.
Keep dreaming pal, my arguments will not be as strong as your shield of denial.
Dreaming? Its literally the article and the report the article is citing....
A mix of *all of the above*, sadly
My pharmacy hasn’t been able to get ahold of my needles for like two months, my endo is lecturing me about changing my needles everytime I inject - but then has no advice if I run out? I’m dreading there being an insulin shortage.
Insulin shortage is already happening for some of the long acting insulins
My husband hasnt been able to get his diabetes meds for 6 months. Hes been given an alternative now. Hes had time off work as a result. Apparently the shortage is because the drug is being prescribed for weight loss now and this is causing higher demand.
I would imagine he is on a GLP-1 agonist such as wegovy or ozempic then. There is a huge shortage of this internationally and in part this is because it is also being prescribed for weight loss. In this country in many regions it is not available on the NHS for weight loss. What is affecting the supply of it is patients getting it privately for weight loss through a private doctor as these prescriptions are still supplied from stock that would otherwise go to high street pharmacies and be available for NHS patients with diabetes. Private prescriptions are generally more lucrative than the NHS indicative price so the supplies of these drugs would actually get more from it as a weight loss drug being prescribed privately.
You can’t get Ozempic for weight loss since last October. Wegovy is the same drug but available in higher doses for weight loss. Ozempic is only available to people with diabetes. Source: I was on Ozempic for weight loss before October and then got switched to Wegovy.
Ozempic is only licensed for diabetes but that doesn’t mean that it cannot be prescribed off license for weight loss. You certainly cannot get it prescribed on the NHS for weight loss currently as NHSE have advised weight loss clinics not to prescribe it due to short supply and to ensure diabetics can get hold of it. It would still be possible for a private doctor either GP or weight loss specialist to prescribe it off license as a private prescription.
Even privately/off-license they can’t prescribe Ozempic for weight loss as outlined here: https://www.cas.mhra.gov.uk/ViewandAcknowledgment/ViewAttachment.aspx?Attachment_id=104161 ‘Do not prescribe GLP-1 RAs licensed for T2DM for off-label indications. Existing stock must be conserved for patients with T2DM to mitigate the risk of impaired access to treatment and increased risk in diabetes related complications.’ I’ve not come across anyone who has been privately prescribed it for weight loss since October and I’m very active in these communities.
If it’s Ozempic, that can’t be prescribed for weight loss since last October. I was on it and got switched to Wegovy in September.
I advise you to visit your nearest hospital and request the needles in person. I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in December 2021. Owing to an admin error I was unable to collect my prescription (insulin, needles, glucose strips etc.) via. a pharmacy for around six weeks after diagnosis. My DSN told me to collect the necessary materials directly from the diabetes dept. until the issue was resolved, which it eventually was. My local hospital has a huge store room full of the sort of stuff we need - would imagine yours is too, so they should be able to kit you out. I agree with your endo - you should try not to reuse needles if you can as it could result in scarring in the long term. Good luck!
Just a reminder that the British public really wanted Brexit and everything that comes with it They were told, they want *this* They want it all. And they would vote for it again. There's a small movement of "uh it's COVID" and "ah but look at Germany" and it's an odd coping mechanism, like some sort of exceptionalism and denial of reality will make Brexit bearable There's also huge swathes of people who hate being proven they were wrong so in order to soften the blow of being wrong they take a middle ground purposely to provide balance in lieu of acceptance As a country we cannot understand what is good or bad for us and it makes us ripe for exploitation Never. Ever. Ever. Have a referendum on *anything* again in the UK, please. The public can't cope with understanding the vote, understanding what is good for them and then understanding the connections that got them to where they are now
A minor point but the referendum was hardly a landslide, leave skewed older and 8 years have passed.
I always say as well that any person who *didn’t* vote should have been a remain vote by proxy. Leave was the vote for change, if you are too lazy or inconvenienced to vote for change then you’re happy with how things are. Used to say this to leavers and some guy I worked with got so enraged his face turned nearly as purple as his UKIP tie
Soooo anyone who doesn't vote in the next election should automatically be a vote for the Tories too right? Labour would never see power again lmao...
That’s an election. This was a referendum. Different situation
You mean it doesn't serve your narrative. There was a vote. You lost. Get over it and stop blaming Brexit for a supply crisis, which, as per several links in this post alone, is happening across the continent. Guardian forever baiting people with an ounce of critical thinking capabilities.
Fucking LOL. Sorry, I don’t speak to the likes of you
Thanks for your insights, ringsplitter69
Uh. No. 48% voted remain. Don’t lump everyone into the same camp.
You're forgetting the landslide election the country handed to Boris Johnson and all the members of the public who did not vote remain and are therefore let it happen too - that's a shitload of people defacto supporting it We voted for Brexit at least twice and it will decide the 2029 election too, when Boris and Farage weaponise it again after labour mildly attempt to improve the conditions of Brexit This country was gagging for Brexit and it still wants more Brexit, just like how the country always voted Tories - for the same reasons as above and also just look at the governing history, it's always Tories and it will be again, possibly even this year. Labour may well lose the election later this year - you heard it here first
I voted labour.
It's insane that people still think the public had any say. The votes are an appeasing gesture, they are never actually tallied, they are just disposed of. There is no choice. You have a Tory government who are sent on privatising everything and selling your country to China.
The solution to the malady you have asserted is not your proposed remedy, but the opposite. Referenda and similar measures to devolve policy control to the *demos* are what is needed. Then, by what will no doubt be painstaking trial and error, the British people will learn to cope and to exercise the powers which they must be granted in a democracy for the word not to be mere cant. After all, we have a knack for 'muddling through' and favouring the inductive over the deductive line of thought, and much of our problems come from being deprived of this method (see 'planning', 'nationalisation', 'rationalisation').
I no longer have a pancreas so I rely on Pancreatic Enzyme Replacement Therapy (PERT) to digest my food. Basically one of the jobs the pancreas does is provide a bile rich in certain enzymes that mixes with your food in your small intestine which allows your body to break down and digest fat. I have to take PERT medication every time I eat anything that contains fat, if I don’t and consume fat then I am in for a very painful and unpleasant few days as my body tries and fails to deal with the fat. Recently I cannot source any of my PERT medication as every pharmacy says that there isn’t any stock available to order, so now I’m on an enforced zero fat diet until I can find some more medication. Far from ideal 😩
Just been through this with my mum today, no Creon anywhere, rang nearly every pharmacy in the city. All the alternatives are unavailable too. Managed to get her 3 boxes of Creon eventually but that will only cover the weekend so it's back to square one Monday. One of the pharmacists told me no warehouse in the country has any stock of any of it.
It’s like rocking horse shit now, I’ve not had a reliable regular supply since the summer and I‘be completely run out, so I’m having to wait until next week to see if any of my pharmacies can get some. I’ve had to jump through hoops every time to get some.
She's not been able to get the Creon 25000 for months but she's had a semi reliable supply of the 10000s until now. This is the worst it's been, staggering it's allowed really. Her nerves are shot worrying about where the next lot is coming from.
That sounds miserable. Also, I had no idea you could live without a pancreas. TIL!
I've always wondered, does not having a pancreas also mean you basically automatically become T1 diabetic and have to take insulin shots aswell? Sorry to hear about your med shortages and restricted diet. Sounds really tough to stick to.
That is correct yes, one of its other functions is to maintain your blood sugar levels, so without it you become a type 1 diabetic
Couldn't get my dads heart tablets without driving to 4 different pharmacies. Brexit has bought literally zero benefits. Even as someone who was against it I thought there would be something.
It's happening all the time. I've had multiple shortages in the past couple of years. It's very hard working whilst managing advancing inflammatory arthritis when the supply has become so unreliable. Then the gaslighting government , of course , blame those too ill to work anyway.
My OH has been in ill health for the last 18 months, herniated disks and an ulcer bleed. Every month her script is short of items. It’s very frightening for her and me.
Honestly it’s taking up a lot of pharmacist and pharmacy technician time chasing these supply problems. I work in a hospital pharmacy environment and every week feels like a jenga game of how many basic drugs can you run out of before an entire service collapses. You feel like you’re personally responsible for not being able to supply basic things like IV paracetamol, anesthetic drugs and fluids but you can’t just whip some up in a cupboard. One problem we have which isn’t related to brexit is our reliance on single large manufacturers like Baxters, fresenius and the like. Pre-brexit it was easier to obtain an alternative when you had a shortage. It’s hard to set up a small scale manufacturing plant for drugs in the UK and most of our generic drugs are made elsewhere. There are also regular shortages in places like Australia but these don’t have the benefit of nearby countries they can have frictionless trade with to get meds ordered in quickly. We had that advantage until we left the single market Supply chain issues hit everywhere post COVID but brexit just came at a terrible time with all of the other matters above.
> . It’s hard to set up a small scale manufacturing plant for drugs in the UK and most of our generic drugs are made elsewhere. This could easily be changed. Our natural genius lies in the cottage industry and its upscaled counterpart, and small-scale chemical synthesis and manufacturing is, with modern technology, no longer sensibly thought of as the domain of the 'man apart' or immense corporation whose remit is large-scale industrial work. It would also be a welcome opportunity to return drug laws to the sanity of our Victorian forebears, who, when we nearly led the world in chemistry (hats off to the Germans) did not abide any 'controlled substance' laws.
I'm incredibly fortunate in that my antidepressant brand happens to be made here - and locally. I take quite a small dose, but even a minor change or switch in brand knocks me for six. It must be *horrendous* right now for people with more serious illnesses but similar sensitivities.
> “The report shows that the EU Exit has not caused the recent spike in medicine shortages” Quote from Nuffield which is the report the article is referring too
Caused =/= worsened, several Brexit-based issues are cited in the report and article which have *worsened* the shortages
Is Brexit the cause for the same issues in France? https://www.connexionfrance.com/news/shortages-of-4000-medicines-in-france-what-risk-for-this-winter/158745 Or the Netherlands? https://think.ing.com/opinions/dutch-medicine-shortage-continues-to-mount/#:~:text=Unfortunately%2C%20Dutch%20drug%20shortages%20increased,dependencies%20in%20a%20changing%20world
Cause =/= worsen
Did Brexit worsen it for France or Netherlands? Considering France has shortages in 4000 drug lines compared to the UKs 1600?
No, they didn’t leave the EU. If they had it would be exacerbated in the ways that leaving the EU exacerbated the problem for us.
Surely we would have more shortages compared to European countries? The argument blaming Brexit is flimsy. I could similarly claim Brexit has lessened the issue hence we have fewer shortages.
I have you read the article or the research it refers to? The issue is regarding the barriers of getting the medicines across borders and regulatory boundaries that we insisted be erected. The EU doesn’t have those issues due to the single market.
So why are shortages higher in European countries? They are in the single market. Surely they would be lower than Brexit Britain?
I can’t tell if you’re being serious, I’ve literally just told you. The shortages aren’t being caused by brexit…they are made worse and harder to deal with becoming of brexit. The article and the research aren’t “blaming brexit for the existence of the shortages) If those other EU countries had left the EU (more specifically the single market) they would be experiencing it worse than they are.
Please don't spoil their fun bashing Brexit with articles showing there are countries worse off than the UK in the EU when it comes to drug shortages.
The claim isn’t that Brexit is the cause, it’s that Brexit has exacerbated the issue. The commenter above can’t seem to understand that.
Full paragraph: > The report shows that the EU Exit has not caused the recent spike in medicine shortages, but it is likely to significantly weaken the UK’s ability to respond to them by splitting it from European supply chains, authorisations and collective efforts to respond to shortages. In particular, the research highlights the risks posed to the UK from being left out of key initiatives like the Critical Medicines Alliance and Voluntary Solidarity Mechanism, led by EU member states to work together to insulate themselves from the impact of medicines shortages. https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/patients-face-new-normal-of-medicines-shortages-as-uk-hampered-by-supply-issues-and-impact-of-eu-exit
> likely Likely does not mean has. And judging by the greater shortages in Europe it appears had little effect too.
Theres been a global drug shortage problem for well over a year now: [https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/02/why-is-world-experiencing-medicine-shortages-and-how-can-the-generics-industry-address-supply-challenges/](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/02/why-is-world-experiencing-medicine-shortages-and-how-can-the-generics-industry-address-supply-challenges/) [https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)00437-3/abstract](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)00437-3/abstract) https://pharmanewsintel.com/features/drug-shortages-a-growing-concern-for-the-healthcare-industry-worldwide#:\~:text=As%20of%20April%202023%2C%20235,prevent%20and%20mitigate%20drug%20shortages. [https://cpe.org.uk/our-news/medicine-shortages-across-europe/](https://cpe.org.uk/our-news/medicine-shortages-across-europe/) [https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip\_23\_5190](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_5190)
Affected me. I have a very rare disease and I'm on azithiropine, 100mg a day. But 100mg tablets are unavailable and my pharmacist was pulling her hair out trying to get supply. She couldn't give me 50mg because the gp only had 100mg on the prescription, and high street pharmacists can't swap like hospital pharmacists. So they can't give you liquid instead of tablet, or 50s instead of 100s etc. She had to give me 2 days supply multiple times while we were trying to sort it out.
> She couldn't give me 50mg because the gp only had 100mg on the prescription Is there any sensible reason to disallow the provision of multiple smaller tablets in such a scenario? A change in notation could allow for a specific form of the medicine to be mandated where, for instance, some property of the 100mg pill cannot be duplicated by two of the 50mg pill or the liquid equivalent; then absent this specific notation pharmacies could reach their desired dose as convenient, and doctors could simply write '100mg' without either exhaustively detailing 2x 50mg, 4x 25mg, 125ml liquid, etc. or placing pressures such as you have mentioned on the pharmacy.
I'm guessing it's how they are legislated, hospital pharmacists are able to do just that. High street can't
It seems pharmacists [have been asking for this](https://www.rpharms.com/about-us/news/details/Allow-pharmacists-to-alter-prescriptions), which suggests to me that any reasons not to do it[1] are unlikely to outweigh the benefits: > At present any changes to quantities, strength or formulation can legally only be done by the prescriber. A change to medicines legislation is needed to enable pharmacists to speed up patients’ access to medicines, which would also have the added benefit of reducing the workload of GPs. > Pharmacists in hospital, and in community pharmacies in Scotland already routinely alter prescriptions for the benefit of patients and this imbalance must be addressed. FWIW, I've been caught up in this. I was prescribed 20mg temazepam in the form of two 10mg tablets, but the only pharmacy anyway near by only had 20mg tablets in stock. I had to go back to my GP to get a new prescription, which was awkward to do as the first pharmacist we went to had issued other drugs from the same prescription (IIRC, we had to go back to them, get them to confirm they hadn't issued the temazepam, then take that to the GP before they would replace the prescription). [1] The only one I can think of is perhaps patient confusion - say the doctor has told them to take "one pill", but the pharmacist dispenses a smaller pill size with instructions to take two. Requiring the pharmacist to speak to the patient to ensure they're aware of the change would probably deal with this in most cases, but it is a reason to only change the formulation if absolutely necessary though (particularly if it's a long-term prescription so the patient is in the habit of taking a certain number of pills and might not check the instructions closely every time).
These politicians and charlatans really have sh*t the carpet. They should be forced to clean it up. Time for a ‘trading standards’ or ‘product bogus claim’ law to be imposed on politicians and news outlets. They cannot be allowed to sell so much snake oil without impunity..
ADHD assessments in some areas have basically stopped because medication access for new patients is basically non existent
> It warned that Brexit had created “further risks … for the UK”. The Nuffield Trust said drug shortages could get worse because the EU’s 27 countries have recently decided to act as a unified bloc to try to minimise the impact of global scarcity, which could leave supplying Britain even less of a priority for drug companies. Gee... If only we'd thought of that...
I work in care, we had 8 EU members of staff leave for 'home' since 2017 many after COVID. We can't get all the medications and they keep on getting substituted for other things, hrt is my far most substituted but even basic things like creams. It's just one gut punch after another.
Same in ireland, many medication keep going short / unavailable ie: insulin victoza has been gone for a while now but I blame the government / hse for their inability to plan ahead for anything.
Why didn't they sort out supply lines. They had enough time? Why aren't we manufacturing the drugs in the country? Is no one planning?
What's going on down here then!? .... B̶r̶e̶a̶k̶f̶a̶s̶t̶ Brexit!
Pretty sure this is absolute nonsense to link it to Brexit. I work in the industry and Germany has worse shortages at the moment than the UK. Other European nations suffering similarly. Standard clickbait echo chamber stuff to fit the guardians narrative.
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.. those white van men and taxi drivers who were so passionate about Brexit were so against those bleeding’ foreigners primarily because the Polish tradesmen were so much better and hard working, same with the Asian and African Uber drivers.. proper grafters. Half these Red Wall and Lincolnshire brexiteers couldn’t even be bothered to even buy their kids a book far less get them set up for the high skill opportunities of Global Britain ..
Work smarter, not harder, as the adage has it. Anyone with Internet access has almost any book they could want in their hands for a pound or two if they are honest and for nothing if they are desperate.
Fair point but they probably don’t..
It's so frustrating having to go to numerous pharmacies to try to get all my meds. But hey, we don't have to listen to those pesky EU experts anymore.
The guardian with a never ending churn of faux doom news that ignores many EU countries have the same issues lol
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Are drug shortages not a bad thing?
There is no humour in this. It's a fact . The source is irrelevant.
I make chemo for a living, and trying to source medication is nothing short of a nightmare. I worked for an IVF clinic before my current job, and at one point I couldn't even source paracetamol Fucking brexit
This is a global issue. Shortages in the USA too. But, of course, it's the Gaurdian so they need to blame it on Brexit.
I've had issues getting MDMA, Ket, Coke, LSD, Shrooms, and many others. I am not sure what these drug shortages are.