Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many meetings his Department has held with hormonal replacement therapy suppliers in (a) 2022 and (b) 2023.

The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) are the representative body for community pharmacy contractors in England. The Department has not met with community pharmacies, however fortnightly meetings have been held with the PSNC in 2022 to discuss the launch of the new hormone replacement therapy (HRT) Prescription Pre-Payment Certificate. The frequency of these meetings increased to weekly in 2023, in the lead up to the 1 April 2023 launch date, and regular meetings will continue over the coming months.

Since May 2022 the Department has held quarterly roundtables with suppliers, wholesalers and community pharmacists to discuss the challenges they are facing, what needs to be done to address them and what they are doing.

The Department also holds regular meetings with individual HRT suppliers, requesting frequent stock updates to monitor progress against plans, horizon scanning for upcoming issues, problem solving and expediting resupply dates where needed to mitigate supply issues.

Ministerial meetings are published quarterly and can be found at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ministers-transparency-publications