Brexit: Medical Shortage Madness

It’s no secret that the UK, deal or no deal, wouldn’t leave the EU unscathed. Regulations on trade with EU countries are all a part of the deal currently being negotiated for Brexit. Brexit will also see the UK with a shortage of incoming medicine. Brexit will further increase how fragile things already are in the UK’s current medicine supply chain, with much higher shortages of extremely vital medicines for treatment of things like epilepsy, depression and psychosis (Cox, 2020)

Medicine is not the only thing that will see shortages. The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) staff has many staff who are not British, with a report stating that of the 1.2 million NHS staff, 5.5% claim an EU nationality (Baker, 2019). Despite only 5.5% being made up of EU nationals, they take up a large percentage of the high skill roles with 9.5% of NHS doctors listed as EU nationals (Baker, 2019). The threat Brexit poses here is according to a study conducted by Cooper (2018) a third of EU doctors working for the NHS are considering departing which could see job vacancies in the NHS triple.

According to findings from Cooper (2018) NHS staff stated that one of their most prominent reasons for departure from the EU is the negative attitude toward EU workers. So if you don’t want to be left with a shortage of high skilled medical professionals next year try and support EU migrant workers in future.

References:

Baker, C., 2019. NHS Staff From Overseas: Statistics. [online] House of Commons Library. Available at: <https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7783/&gt; [Accessed 26 April 2020].

Cooper, K., 2018. BMA – EEA Doctors Have No Faith In Government, Finds Survey. [online] Archive.bma.org.uk. Available at: <https://archive.bma.org.uk/news/2018/november/eea-doctors-have-no-faith-in-government&gt; [Accessed 26 April 2020].

Cox, A., 2020. What Could Brexit Mean For Our Access To Medicines? – University Of Birmingham. [online] Birmingham.ac.uk. Available at: <https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/perspective/brexit-medicine-shortage.aspx&gt; [Accessed 26 April 2020].

EPR, 2020. [image] European Pharmaceutical Review. Available at: <https://www.europeanpharmaceuticalreview.com/news/102429/dhsc-supports-continuity-of-medical-supplies-in-a-no-deal-brexit-scenario/&gt; [Accessed 26 April 2020]