Policy forum: The diamorphine shortage: The course, lessons, and implications of the diamorphine ‘shortage’

Abstract

For most of those affected, the entrance into the 18‐month to two‐year long nightmare roller coaster ride precipitated by the onset of the diamorphine ‘shortage’ in late December 2004 was sudden. Alarmingly, as one patient's representative put it, most patients only found out that there was a problem on New Year's Eve of 2004 when they walked in to their pharmacists to make their regular collection of diamorphine ampoules only to be told either that there weren't any, or that supplies were becoming extremely scarce and hard to source.