Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

Yes, we will look at that.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

Baroness Cumberlege’s report is not just welcome, but blunt, both in the way it talks about the specific problems with women patients treated by Primodos, sodium valproate and mesh, and the way it talks about the systemic and cultural problems that we have, which mean that this is not the first time that we have dealt with these issues in this place. Hopefully, it will be the last, but the report does say that there is nothing that leads them to believe that this is not happening with other medications and devices. I was in exactly the position of those women who were prescribed sodium valproate, but I was lucky. I had a female GP who spotted the danger and advised me, and I was given alternative medication—taken off it completely in fact—before I became pregnant. Can the Minister assure me that from today, we will take a much more positive approach, so that as well as the recommendations, we will have some kind of strategy—a cultural approach—to getting across how important it is that these issues are dealt with when women go to their GPs?

[Ms Dorries]

I will try to keep my answers shorter. The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The sodium valproate pregnancy prevention programme is running hand in hand with an information awareness programme. Many GPs are aware, but of course there is still a problem and it is something that we are addressing.