Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Baroness Cumberlege has honorary fellowships at the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Physicians, so she is well connected with all the organisations that the hon. Lady mentioned.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. As he indicated, our products are world leading, and China and the UK have come to an understanding on medical device regulation, which is great news. However, does the Secretary of State have any information about further such understandings to ensure that we can export our medical innovations throughout the world safely and with as little red tape as possible?

[Mr Hunt]

It is fair and important to say that our regulatory system is admired the world over because we do safety extremely well and take it extremely seriously, but that does not mean that we cannot improve it. The lesson of today is that patients’ voices have not been strong in that process, and that is what we need to change.