Island residents are being advised to plan their pharmacy visits and repeat prescription collections carefully over the next couple of weeks.

It’s because of a severe UK-wide shortage of locum pharmacists, which has impacted Lloyds pharmacies in the island.

The chain runs 10 of the island’s 23 community pharmacies.

The issue is not impacting the other 13 community pharmacists across the Isle of Man, which will remain open for business as usual over the next three weeks for prescription collections, provision of walk-in advice and other pharmacy-related services.

Manx residents can use any of these stores to collect prescriptions or seek pharmacist support they may ordinarily have sought elsewhere.

Lloyds has been struggling to provide cover at some of its Manx stores in recent weeks; however, this position is set to deteriorate even further over the next three weeks until locum support can be secured from the UK.

As a result, some of the chain’s stores may be working to reduced hours or closed, with staff being relocated to other stores to make sure there is pharmacy coverage in all major towns and villages.

Maria Bell, pharmaceutical adviser for Manx Care, said: ’Firstly, I’d like to reassure Manx residents that they will be able to access medication, collect prescriptions and seek walk-in advice at pharmacies on the island over the next three weeks, although in some cases it may not be at their usual pharmacy.

’Manx Care is working very closely to support Lloyds at the moment.

’The UK-wide shortage of qualified pharmacists is sadly not a new predicament, and at times this impacts the locum provision some of the pharmacies can access here in the island.’

She added: ’Unfortunately the situation has only been exacerbated across the last 18 months as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, given that many of the locums working across the British Isles are EU citizens who’ve chosen to return home to be closer to their families.

’We want to make sure that some of the harder-to-reach members of our community are aware of this situation and so if you have friends, relatives or people living in your local community who use pharmacy services and may not have ready access to social media, please make them aware of this so that they can plan accordingly.’

Further details relating to the affected stores can be found on the government website on the ’Pharmacy services’ page.