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 potential merits of making Tranexamic Acid (TXA) a Schedule 19 Drug.

Discussions on the administration of tranexamic acid (TXA) formed part of the Manchester Arena Inquiry, established in 2019, to investigate the deaths of the victims of the attack on the Arena on 22 May 2017. One of the inquiry’s recommendations tasked the Department, the Faculty of Pre-Hospital Care, the College of Paramedics, and the National Ambulance Resilience Unit to undertake a review into whether frontline ambulances should carry intramuscular TXA.

Intramuscular TXA is available to paramedics as a route of administration, and is now advocated in national guidance. Additional work is being taken forward regarding the intramuscular route of administration. This work is currently considering alternative methods using newly developed concentrated forms of TXA to achieve more rapid administration, and whether this could be used safely by wider group of responders.