Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure the supply of statins after the UK leaves the EU.

Until we can be certain of the outcome of Brexit negotiations our duty as a responsible government is to prepare for all eventualities, including ‘no deal’. On 23 August 2018, therefore, the Department wrote to all pharmaceutical companies that supply the United Kingdom with prescription only or pharmacy medicines from, or via, the European Union/European Economic Area, asking them to ensure 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 in the event of a no-deal scenario.

Since then, we have received very good engagement from industry who share our aims of ensuring continuity of medicines supply for patients is maintained and able to cope with any potential delays at the border that may arise in the short term in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

We understand that statins are vitally important to many people in this country. However, the Department recognises that through its medicines supply contingency programme it is requesting sensitive commercial information from pharmaceutical companies. To reassure participating companies, we have committed to treating all information received confidentially, securely and to using it only for the purposes of the Department’s programme. That means not introducing information about a company, specific medicine or their supply routes into the public domain.