Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to encourage the NHS to preferentially purchase antibiotics manufactured in environmentally sustainable ways, as set out in the new Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy, published on 24 January 2019.

‘Tackling antimicrobial resistance 2019–2024: The UK’s five-year national action plan’ sets out a commitment to minimise antimicrobial contamination. The United Kingdom will work with other countries to ensure responsible antimicrobial procurement from manufacturers with transparent world class environmental stewardship in their supply chains.

Following the publication of the national action plan, NHS England’s Commercial Medicines Unit is considering the ways in which future framework agreements could be modified to address relevant aspects, including environmental sustainability.