The Government has pledged to exempt epilepsy patients from its plans for post-Brexit medicine supplies after experts said some people could die.
The Department of Health and Social Care is proposing to give pharmacists powers to dispense alternative drugs if those prescribed by GPs are in short supply after Britain leaves the EU.
But the heads of Britain’s largest epilepsy groups claim that changing medication will raise the risk of seizures, leading to deaths.
A coalition of epilepsy charities, neurology organisations and the All Parliamentary Group on Epilepsy wrote a letter to The Sunday Times, in which they say: “The government’s planned use of serious shortage protocols as emergency powers to authorise pharmacists to overrule medical prescriptions is frightening. People with epilepsy risk developing seizures if their usual medication is altered.”
Epilepsy will now be excluded from the protocol. To read more about the issue and how the coalition managed to get this concession from the government, please use the link here:
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