Two hours a day chasing stock is the real cost of shortages

Community Pharmacy England's 2025 pressures survey found pharmacy teams now spend over two hours a day, on average, sourcing alternative medicines. 86% of teams say sourcing takes longer than it did a year before. In the first half of 2026 the Department of Health and Social Care logged 687 supply-issue notifications.

Two hours is a shift fragment. Over a week it is a day of a dispenser's time spent on the phone rather than checking, dispensing and talking to patients.

What actually burns the time

It is rarely the shortage itself. It is the second call. The first-line wholesaler shows the line out of stock, so someone rings a second supplier, then a third, opens an account application that takes a week, or asks another local pharmacy for a favour. The gap between "my usual supplier is out" and "I have a confirmed alternative" is where the two hours live.

The arithmetic of a standing second line

A second-line account that is already open, verified and known changes the sequence: one call, one answer, stock either held or not. That is the whole case for keeping a short-line wholesaler on the books before the day you need one. It is also why we publish our verification process and licence number up front: the worst time to start due diligence on a new supplier is mid-shortage.

We keep our stock on the ground in Stoke-on-Trent and answer our own phones. If a line has failed on you this week, that is exactly the conversation to have with us.