Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to exclude epilepsy medications from the Serious Shortage Protocol for medicines; and if he will make a statement.

Any serious shortage protocol would be developed with and signed off by clinicians. Only if clinicians deem it appropriate, an alternative quantity, strength, pharmaceutical form or medicine can be dispensed in line with the protocol. Each protocol would clearly set out what action can be taken by the retail pharmacy, under what circumstances, for which patients and during which period.

Protocols for therapeutic or generic equivalents will not be suitable for all medicines and patients. For example, they would not be suitable for treatments where the medicines that are prescribed need to be prescribed by brand for clinical reasons, for example anti-epilepsy medicines. In these cases, patients would always be referred back to the prescriber for any decision about their treatment before any therapeutic or generic alternative is supplied.