The HRT shortages are nearly over. I've read several theories on why this happened, but the most reasonable one, with substantial evidence, is that it was a result of commercial competition for the available supply of guar beans (also called clusterbeans).
Guar beans are essential for the glue in the patches; other suitable glues are available but the prices are far too high. Guar beans are widely used in foodstuffs as a thickener, in mining operations, and particularly in fracking. They're a subsistence farming product across a wide areas of India (mainly), and Pakistan. Guar beans grow well in arid areas, they fix nitrogen in the soil so are beneficial to poor soils, produce thee crops a year, and don't need expensive chemicals to grow.
The shortage of beans came about because there were substantial increases in fracking in both the USA and China in 2019 for which there was a much increased demand for the beans; big pharma had to compete with big petrochemical and mining companies for a simple agricultural product, and ldidn't offer enough to secure the supply through the new contracts being tendered for.
I managed to get supply from The Independent Pharmacy and Superdrug Doctor Online when my local pharmacy said none of the Evorel products could be bought anywhere, and haven't had any interruption. The Independent Pharmacy got extra supplies from European pharmacies, supplied with the correct English language patient leaflet, and I had enough in October 2019 to get me through to September this year. My new order arrives from Superdrug tomorrow. I thought I'd buy and see what the expiry dates on the product are; the shortage is 'ending', it hasn't ended yet. According to what Theramex said, this is new production run so should have at least two-year expiry dates on them. From following this through the business media (Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Times of India, business pages in reputable UK newspapers), Theramex (they have a contract with Janssen for Evorel products) have been informative about when they expected production to be fully up and running again, and the products have come back to market in line with what they anticipated.
The upside of this demand, is that huge numbers of subsistence farmers have had a significant improvement in their standard of living, and I don't think anyone would begrudge them that.
If you think patches are right for you, OP, I think you wouldn't have any problem with supply now, if you're prepared to pay for supply privately as well as have them prescribed, until we have certainty of supply. A 12-week supply of Evorel Conti patches cost me £75 from Superdrug; it's worth it to me for the security. My prescribed supply has been arriving in a rather 'iffy' manner, maybe in two or three deliveries, up to two weeks late, but it arrives, it restarted seven weeks ago.
I don't see why NHS England should be so uninformative about the problem, If I can find this out with less than two hours trawling the Web for the sources I needed, nine months ago(!) the NHS has no excuse for being so secretive.
I started with Evorel Sequi in 1999, and moved to Evorel Conti later, I don't remember the year. It's prescribed for osteoporosis which runs in my family. It works for me with no worrying side effects. The initial risk assessment (no family history of cancer or vascular problems) pointed to HRT being the best option as on the osteoporosis history, I would probably need it for life. Bisphosphonates weren't available then and I wouldn't take them anyway.
HTH.