Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what processes are in place to (a) monitor, (b) assess the need for new and (c) introduce new formularies for prescription items throughout England; and which organisation is responsible for overseeing those processes.

Formularies are developed locally between trusts and clinical commissioning groups as part of their local responsibilities.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) have developed good practice guidance on developing and updating local formularies. The guidance supports developing formularies that reflect local needs, reduce variation in prescribing, and allow rapid adoption of new medicines and treatments. It also recommends that local formularies be published. The guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/Guidance/MPG1