Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department plans to prevent the unlawful prescription of puberty suppressants from GPs based overseas.

The United Kingdom currently recognises prescriptions from countries on an approved list. A prescription from a country not on the list would not be recognised. We will only recognise prescriptions issued by prescribers of equivalent professional status to those eligible to prescribe in the UK.

We would expect all registered pharmacies and pharmacists to meet the regulatory standards set by the General Pharmaceutical Council or the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland when considering dispensing any lawfully valid prescription.