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Drugs shortage

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8516080.stm

Following Ian's posting and reading the BBC news article, I immediately contacted my local MP online. Hopefully he can be aware of this growing problem and help do something about it.

Is it worth more of us speaking up? Or perhaps you are already.
beth

Please see my contribution to the related thread titled"Difficulties in supplying Imatinib".In response to Ian I believe that it is always good for those who are experiencing problems in sourcing Glivec to make it known to our MPs and to Mike O 'Brian the Health Minister-they are always happy that we dont complain because they then hope the problem will go away.So far government has condemned unethical trading in pharmacy drugs and suggested that there be a summit of all parties in the drugs supply chain in early March full stop.
It is only Boots and Novartis that have demonstrated any form of corporate social responsibility in this matter by way of ensuring that supply channels to patients were still open by way of bi-passing the pharmacy drugs wholesalers.
On 16 Feb the Health Services Journal the sister publication of Nursing Times exposed the Royal Surrey County Hospital Foundation Trust as over a period of ten months having sold NHS drugs overseas to the value of £4.6m and made a £300,000 profit from these sales.The trust continued trading until January 2010 even after in July 2009 the goverment's chief pharmacist sent a mail to all hospital pharmacists which said that this practice was wholly unacceptable and it was irresponsible for NHS hospitals to export drugs overseas.
Royal Surrey say that they did not export overseas any shortage drugs and that the drugs traded were freely available under the NHS;however the Royal Surrey have declined to detail the drugs that were exported so we are unable to check the accuracy of their statement.
The story was featured on London Tonight news on 17 February and the Daily Mail on 18 February ran an article on this NHS hospital dabbling in pharmacy trading.
This hospital is very near to me but I am not being treated there .I sent my local newspaper Surrey Advertiser a copy of my previous mail of Feb 8 to my MP Anne Milton(see the other thread on this issue) and they called back to interview me and I related my experiences of trying source Glivec back in January.I dont know if they will I will be featured or not in the issue Friday 20 February.
I am not sure how my MP will respond as she has always been a great supporter of this hospital that recently gained foundation status.The pharmacy trading helped to improve the trading position of the hospital and contributed the them being able to be granted foundation status.The government Monitor saw nothing wrong with this pharmacy trading as long as it it did not affect UK patients and their access to drugs.
I suggest that we keep this issue on the horizon as otherwise it becomes old news and is forgotten.CML s who have experienced supply problems with Glivec might ask their MPs whether he /she will ask their local NHS hospital/trust if it has been engaging in export of NHS drugs during 2009 and at present and if so which drugs were exported.
Let us keep up the pressure as we are small in numbers and quite rare and we consume an expensive drug so many politicians would be happy to forget about us.
The pharmacy traders at Royal Surrey did not act outside the law as the hospital holds a wholesalers license-possibly they will receive large performance bonus and rewards for their efforts
To see the full articles just type in to any search engine the key words
That is all for now
Best wishes
John W