With 80% of NHS prescriptions relying on generic drugs, the UK remains perilously dependent on overseas production.
Britain is over-reliant on China for medicines, the report warns (Image: Getty)
Britain’s reliance on China for life-saving NHS medicines is a ticking time bomb, exposing patients to “dangerous” vulnerabilities in fragile global supply chains, a new report has warned. The House of Lords Public Services Committee’s report, Medicines security—a national priority, published today, highlights medicine supply shortages as a critical national security risk, with profound threats to public health when patients can’t access essential drugs.
It criticises the UK Government and NHS for lacking oversight and coordination on medicine resilience, focusing reactively on crises rather than preventing them. Key findings reveal the Government’s failure to communicate shortages or solutions effectively to frontline staff like pharmacists and GPs. There’s minimal oversight from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) on medicine stocks or risks to critical medicines, whose shortages could severely impact patients. Alarmingly, 73% of pharmacy workers in 2025 reported ongoing supply issues endangering patients.
Pharmacists are heavily reliant on India and China [FILE PIC] (Image: Getty)
The report underscores the UK’s heavy dependence: the majority of active ingredients for NHS medicines come from China, India, or single sources, risking disruptions from geopolitics, trade issues, or disasters. Of the 80% generic medicines prescribed by the NHS, only a quarter are manufactured in the UK, with most produced in Europe and Asia.
Baroness Morris of Yardley, who chaired the inquiry, pulled no punches: “We tend to only think of medicines and medicine supply when we are ill and need access to medication via our GPs, hospitals or pharmacies. However, the issue is of great importance because of the risk to people’s health and wellbeing if medicine shortages occur.”
She continued: “Our inquiry found that concerns have been raised about medicine shortages and there are issues with medicines resilience. However, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) are not particularly proactive in tackling these issues, and it is not given the attention needed given the enormous impact on the country if problems arise. There is a general lack of oversight and leadership to address current shortcomings across the medicines supply and manufacturing process.”
The committee’s recommendations demand action: Treat medicine security as a national security issue, add it to the National Risk Register, and conduct regular preparedness exercises for large-scale medicine and API failures. Appoint a senior individual to oversee resilience across government, ensuring data sharing.
Improve information sharing with care providers on shortages and availability, equipping GPs, hospitals, and pharmacies with tools to support patients. Boost UK manufacturing of generic medicines and ingredients, collaborating with industry to enhance supply chain resilience through procurement and contracts.
Publish a Critical Medicines List and API list, based on clinical priority and vulnerability, to guide production, stockpiling, and negotiations. The government should outline plans to strengthen resilience for these items.
Baroness Morris stressed: “We’ve set out a number of recommendations in our report which should help tackle the issues raised. Chief amongst these is the need for better communication of any shortages to GPs, hospitals and pharmacies so they can take necessary action to support patients and more importantly, the recognition that medicines supply chain resilience is a national security issue that should be on the national security risk register and prioritised accordingly.”
She added: “There needs to be senior government oversight of the issue with cross department coordination so that necessary action can be taken to both tackle issues when they occur and head off issues by taking timely preventative measures.”
Regarding manufacturing, she added: “The Government also need to look more closely at how we can boost medicines manufacturing within the UK to reduce our reliance on single source supplies or an over reliance on China or India where the majority of our NHS medicines are made.
“This should ideally reduce our vulnerability to outside factors such as national disasters or trade or political disputes affecting increasingly fragile global supply chains.”
She concluded: “The Government needs to consider compiling a Critical Medicines List and then look at how we can increase the UK manufacture of the medicines on that list and shore up our resilience and stockpiling based on it.
“Medicines are essential to the health of the nation and so we urge the Government to follow our recommendations to ensure the UK has the vital, strong, resilient medicines supply chain it needs to keep people healthy.”
