Tighter control and regulation is needed urgently in relation to the sale of pharmaceuticals, specifically paracetamol, to children online. The sale of these items online in an unregulated manner presents a clear and significant risk to children and young people in the UK. 

The child mental health status in the UK is at crisis point. Waiting lists for mental health services are stretched so thin that children with suicidal intentions, including actual and repeated suicide attempts, are on waiting lists for months if not years for therapy.

Whilst waiting for these therapies and treatments, parents are trying their best to keep their children safe from harm and reduce the risk of them attempting to take their own life. This task is heartbreaking and difficult enough without the added worry of your child ordering paracetamol online and having a means of attempting to end their own life delivered right to the front door.

On several occasions in the months following my daughters first attempt to take her own life I have intercepted parcels addressed to her that contain paracetamol. I work from home and am lucky that most deliveries arrive when I am at home, but what if I miss one? What about those parents who have to go out to work or for other commitments? The thought of coming home to a child who has taken an overdose makes me feel physically sick and it is a worry I shouldn’t have. I can’t change the way she feels, we are waiting patiently for professional help.

The question is, how is she managing to buy these products, where is the regulation?! Any age restricted items should require age verification before being purchased or shipped and at the door upon delivery. If you buy nicotine or alcohol products online you have to upload photo ID and a current selfie of yourself to verify you are the correct age before they will ship your order. How is this not an enforceable regulation for pharmaceuticals? I am fully aware that not all companies are so lacking in safeguards but I know that both eBay and Amazon have been used, all it takes is one source to be selling paracetamol in this way.

How can this be prevented, how is our government going to step up and help us in the daily battle to keep our children safe whilst we wait patiently for the NHS services they so desperately need?!