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Shortages continue to burden healthcare systems, healthcare professionals and affect patient care.
27 November 2025
Today, the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) released the results of its new Shortages Survey, assessing and monitoring shortages of medicines and medical devices experienced in hospitals since the last survey carried out in 2023. EAHP has been actively working on the issue of medicines shortages since 2012, when it launched its first European Medicines Shortages Survey.
The survey gathered responses from hospital pharmacists, other hospital professionals and patients, with findings showing that medicines and medical devices shortages remain persistent across Europe.
Hospital pharmacists confirmed that medicines shortages affect patient care (89%) and pharmacy operations (79%), with global shortages of active pharmaceutical ingredients, manufacturing issues, and pricing identified as the main causes. All respondent hospital pharmacists experienced shortages of critical medicines at least one to three times in 2024.
Medical device shortages also remain significant, with 53% of respondent hospital pharmacists reporting impacts on patient care and 45% on pharmacy operations, mainly due to supply chain problems and shortages or discontinuation of components.
Hospital pharmacists consistently reported delays in care or therapy, cancellation of care, and suboptimal treatment as major consequences of medicines shortages. While for medical devices shortages, they reported delays in care, increased length of stay in hospital, and cancellation of care as major consequences.
Overall, the findings confirm that shortages persist, continuing to affect both patient care and hospital pharmacy activities.
To ensure patients always receive the appropriate medicines and medical devices, EAHP urges policymakers at the European and national level to:
- Enhance coordination between European institutions and Member States, ensuring the involvement of all supply chain actors, including hospital pharmacists and other healthcare professionals.
- Strengthen solidarity among European countries.
- Set-up national task forces, comprised of agencies, industries and frontline healthcare professionals like hospital pharmacists to discuss and adopt proactive measures for combatting shortages including performing joint risk assessments, based on timely provided information.
- Require safety plans and risk assessments for manufacturers.
- Support and increase risk assessment practices in hospitals.
- Support the European production of active pharmaceutical ingredients, especially when it comes to products with a high dependency on outside sources.
- Safeguard and facilitate hospital pharmacists’ role in compounding to offer adequate patient care.
- Introduce procurement practices based on comprehensive set of criteria, not solely on the price.
EAHP President Nenad Miljković highlights that “good models of transparent, timely and structured information sharing on shortages among all supply-chain stakeholders yields positive results in alleviating shortages’ impact on health outcomes and healthcare systems as a whole. Proactive versus reactive approach in mitigating shortages, coupled with securing options for compounding, as a last resort, bring our patients closer to treatment and better health outcomes in times of shortages”.
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