Drug shortages, Eye drops for myopia, Is muscle more dense than fat? Sarcopenia
Inside Health
BBC
4.4 • 575 Ratings
🗓️ 15 January 2019
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
An unprecedented number of medicines are in short supply, according to NHS England. Doctors, pharmacists and patients all over the UK are finding common drugs like naproxen are more difficult to get hold of. Why is there such a problem with supply of medicines that are normally cheap and easy to get hold of? And why a 'severe shortage protocol' due in the next few weeks should give pharmacists more power help ease the situation. Mark talks to Ash Soni, president of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and pharmacist, Ben Merriman to find out more. The number of children with short-sightedness, myopia has doubled in the last 50 years. Mark finds out why atropine eye drops, which are widely used in China and Singapore, are being trialled on children in the UK to help prevent the progression of myopia. Professor Augusto Azuara-Blanco from Queens University Belfast explains. And is muscle more dense than fat? Jason Gill, professor of cardio metabolic health at the University of Glasgow discusses how even a small amount of fat loss can have hugely significant health benefits. Elaine Dennison, professor of Musculoskeletal Epidemiology at the University of Southampton explains why muscle is an under researched part of the body and how we lose muscle mass and strength in middle age and what we can do to prevent it.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, and I'm Ed Gamble, host of another BBC podcast, |
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| 0:34.4 | Hello, coming up in the next half hour, muscles why we should all be doing more to stay strong |
| 0:40.1 | and treating short-sightedness with eyedrops, commonplace in some parts of the world, but not here |
| 0:46.4 | in the UK. But we start with medicines, or rather a lack of them. Millions of people describe |
| 0:53.1 | run-of-the-mill drugs for conditions like arthritis |
| 0:55.7 | and high blood pressure are finding that their pharmacy can't supply their usual pills. Margaret McCartney |
| 1:01.6 | is in our Glasgow studio. What's the situation like in Scotland, Margaret? I think it's just as bad. |
| 1:06.7 | I mean, NHS England have said that there is an unprecedented number of medicines in short supply, and I don't see anything different happening up here. It is a complete nightmare. So you're busy, you expect to be busy when you're on call. You know, you expect when you're a juicy doctor to have a lot of stuff to do. And that's great if it's stuff that's really useful for patients. But what you're finding actually is it's just trying to find standard medications that |
| 1:28.0 | should be in stock and we're not able to get hold of. It's a hassle for us. It's a hassle for |
| 1:32.3 | the patients. It's a hassle for the pharmacist. It's completely pointless because this |
| 1:36.9 | really should be sorted out centrally. And it means that we're not getting to do more important |
| 1:41.1 | work because we're doing this hassily stuff instead. To be clear, it's not generally a risk to patient's health. |
| 1:49.1 | This is about the hassle of the patient having to come back and see you and get another drug |
| 1:52.2 | prescribe you having to prescribe it. |
| 1:53.7 | Yeah, and quite often it's just to do with dosages or strength or preparation or a different |
| 1:58.1 | generic brand, for example. |
| 1:59.8 | We talked about strategies of epipens, adrenaline and auto-injectors last year in Insight Health. |
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