Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his Department's policy is to ensure that people who require repeat prescriptions are able to have access to the medicine they require.

The Government does not distinguish between acute and repeat prescriptions. Over two million prescription items – acute and repeat - are dispensed in England alone every day. Medicine supply problems can occur for a wide variety of reasons, and the Department has well established routine procedures to deal with shortages, from whatever cause, working closely with manufacturers, the National Health Service and patient groups.