Drugs: Supply and Availability

Lord Patel Excerpts

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

Community pharmacies play a vital role in our communities. I will certainly take on board what the noble Lord has said and look into that.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, all of us want the UK to be the best place in the world for excellent, new and innovative medicines. However, the pharma industry has complained about uncompetitive rebate rates for both voluntary and statutory schemes. Added to that, it has found it difficult to launch new medicines in the UK, and there is a great variation of availability to patients of medicines appraised by NICE of as much as 51%. What are the Government doing to address all these problems with solutions, so that patients can get the medicines they need?

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

The Government work closely with NICE on a multitude of new medicines and do a very good job of bringing them to the patients of need. If the noble Lord has any specific issues about any particular drugs, I can certainly look into that on his behalf.