Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the report entitled First Do No Harm: the report of Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, published in July 2020, what progress he has made on setting up an independent Redress Agency.

The previous Government did not previously accept the recommendation to establish a redress agency, as set out in the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review. However, the Government is carefully considering the valuable work done by the Patient Safety Commissioner and the resulting Hughes Report, published in February 2024, which recommended and set out options for redress for those harmed by valproate and pelvic mesh. We will be providing an update to the Patient Safety Commissioner’s report at the earliest opportunity.