A Rickmansworth based online pharmacy has seen wholesaler prices rise 10 times higher than usual amid empty shelves and demand spikes.

Chemist Click provides consultation and prescription services, focusing on low-risk medical conditions that can be treated safely, using a remote service, with a mission to make patients' lives easier.

Like many pharmacies, the business, which delivers to customers across the country, has experienced empty shelves and even had to turn prescriptions away as some medicines have become so hard to get hold of.

Watford Observer: Superintendent Pharmacist Abbas KananiSuperintendent Pharmacist Abbas Kanani (Image: Chemist Click)

Abbas Kanani, founder of Chemist Click, said: “There are always shortages of some sort. But for me, over 11 years of being a pharmacist, I haven’t seen the market for medicine as bad as this in terms of stock availability and prices.

“Some medicines are very difficult to get or have really gone up in price. With one medicine we only managed to find one wholesaler and their price was about 10 times what it would normally be.”

Pharmacists across the country have reported shortages of common medicines for colds and flu including throat lozenges, cough mixtures and some pain killers.

Issues were heightened in December during the Strep A outbreak but have been present throughout the past year, particularly for people with cold or flu symptoms.

Mr Kanani, 33, said: "We've seen an increase in demand for medicines treating symptoms of cold and flu with people looking online as an alternative option to buying from store.

“With stock running low, people may be at risk of wasting money by choosing a medicine which is not necessarily the best treatment for their specific symptoms.

“Different symptoms require different treatments, for example mucus coughs are best treated with an expectorant, whilst a dry, tickly cough requires a cough suppressant,” he added.

“Some of the treatments are not life or death but if people cannot get them it really impacts their quality of life.”

He said that the national problem has been driven by a lack of planning and difficulty getting stock after Brexit, as well as the crisis in the NHS and general rising inflation.