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 effect of the UK leaving the EU on patient access to short-shelf life medicines.

The Government has made significant progress in negotiations with the European Union and remains confident the United Kingdom will leave with a good deal for both sides. This deal will include ensuring patients in the UK have access to appropriate, safe, and cost effective medicines, including short shelf-life medicines.

However, as a responsible Government, we continue to prepare proportionately for all scenarios, including the unlikely outcome that we leave the EU without any deal in March 2019. Therefore on 23 August 2018, the Department wrote to a number of pharmaceutical companies that supply medicines for National Health Service patients from, or via, the EU/European Economic Area (EEA), asking them to ensure that they have a minimum of six weeks additional supply in the UK, over and above their business as usual operational buffer stocks by 29 March 2019.

For certain medicines with short shelf lives, which cannot be reasonably stockpiled, we are specifically asking that where these products are imported to the UK from the EU/EEA via road haulage and roll-on, roll-off sea, road and rail routes, suppliers ensure in advance plans to air freight these medicines to the UK. This will ensure that UK patients have the same access to these medicines as they currently do in unlikely event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.