Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the causes of prescription medicine shortages in the UK, including reported shortages of aspirin 75mg dispersible tablets and supply disruption affecting carbamazepine (Tegretol) prolonged-release tablets; and what steps he is taking to improve national medicines supply.

Medicine supply chains are complex, global, and highly regulated and there are a number of reasons why supply can be disrupted, many of which are not specific to the United Kingdom and outside of Government control, including manufacturing difficulties, access to raw materials, sudden demand spikes, or distribution issues and regulatory issues. There are approximately 14,000 licensed medicines and the overwhelming majority are in good supply.

The Department is currently not aware of any supply issues affecting Tegretol prolonged-release tablets.

The Department is aware of a recent disruption to the supply of aspirin tablets due to manufacturing issues and knock-on increased demand. The issues have been addressed, and we are working with suppliers to aid a return to normal supply as soon as possible with stock regularly being made available for pharmacies to order.

We continue to work with manufacturers and United Kingdom distributors to maximise supply to pharmacies and hospitals across the country. The Department is closely monitoring the situation and expects supplies to return to normal in the coming weeks.

In August 2025, the Department published a policy paper, Managing a robust and resilience supply of medicines, setting out our actions to strengthen supply chain resilience, which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/managing-a-robust-and-resilient-supply-of-medicines/managing-a-robust-and-resilient-supply-of-medicines#next-steps

The Department has committed to providing a published update on progress in 2026.