Britain is being left behind with measures to tackle medicines shortages

AI Summary

The article argues that the UK is being left out of EU efforts to strengthen medicines manufacturing and address shortages, while disruptions and price rises have affected supplies since 2022. It links the problem to Brexit and warns that medicine shortages threaten public health.

Andy Burnham’s speech at the Labour Party conference last week made clear that this government sees the UK’s future as being closer to the EU. But even if the prime minister tries to begin the path to a full re-entry to the union or its single market, for many years to come we will continue to live with the ongoing and expanding problems that Brexit has created.The concerns of the car industry have dominated recent headlines. But Britain is also being left aside in EU measures to strengthen medicines manufacturing and to tackle medicine shortages. The risk here is to the security of people’s health, and it is already happening.A problem sharedThe period since 2022 has been a long, dark winter of medicine shortages in the UK and EU. Manufacturing disruptions and price rises owing to covid-19 and the war in Ukraine happened after many years of governments, for understandable...