NHS: Drugs

(asked on 4th April 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what contingency plans his Department has to mitigate (a) staff and (b) pharmaceutical shortages in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.


Answered by
Stephen Hammond Portrait
Stephen Hammond
This question was answered on 9th April 2019

The Department continues to monitor and analyse overall staffing levels in the health and social care sectors and we have been monitoring leaver and joiner rates of European Union staff on a regular basis since the 2016 referendum. While we do not expect our exit from the EU to lead to a significant number of health staff leaving on or around exit day, we are not complacent and are continually monitoring staffing levels and working with other Government Departments and local areas to put in place mechanisms to respond to any shortages.

We hugely value the contribution of EU staff working in health and social care and the Government has made it clear that we want them to stay. That is why EU staff in health and social care have had early access to the EU Settlement Scheme since December 2018, allowing them to secure their rights to live and work in the United Kingdom. In March 2019, we put in place legislation that ensures the continued recognition of qualifications from EU countries by all professional regulators covering the health and social care sectors. This means EU staff who are currently practising in the UK can continue to do so, and that professionals qualified in the European Economic Area and Switzerland can continue to apply for registration after ‘exit day’, even if we leave without a ‘deal’.

Furthermore, the NHS Long Term Plan sets out a vital strategic framework to ensure that over the next 10 years the National Health Service will have the staff it needs, so that nurses and doctors can administer the expert compassionate care they are committed to providing. Baroness Dido Harding, Chair of NHS Improvement, working closely with Sir David Behan, Chair of Health Education England, will lead a number of programmes to develop a detailed workforce implementation plan. Baroness Harding and Sir David will present these initial recommendations to the Department this spring.

On medicines, the Department has been working closely with trade bodies, product suppliers, the NHS in England, and the devolved administrations and Crown Dependencies, to ensure the continuation of the supply of medicines to the whole of the UK in the event of a ‘no deal’ EU exit. This includes the NHS, social care and the independent sector and covers licensed medicines (prescription only, pharmacy and general sales list medicines) and unlicensed medicines (specials, investigational medicinal products and UK imports).

The Department, together with industry and the NHS, has analysed the supply chains of 12,300 medicines and we are grateful for excellent engagement from all parties, which means our plans are well advanced. As a result of this analysis, the Department has put in place a multi-layered approach to minimise any supply disruption.

We are confident that, if everyone does what they need to do, the supply of medicines and medical products will be uninterrupted in the event of exiting the EU without a deal.

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