NHS: Drugs
(asked on 3rd September 2019) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department will take to provide advice and guidance to clinicians on medicine shortages that occur as a result of the UK leaving the EU without a withdrawal agreement.
As part of a responsible government, the Department is doing everything appropriate to prepare for European Union exit. We want to reassure patients that our plans should ensure the supply of medicines and medical products when we leave the EU on 31 October.
The Department, in consultation with the devolved administrations, has been working with trade bodies, product suppliers, and the health and care system in England to make detailed plans that should ensure continuation of the supply of medicines to the whole of the United Kingdom and its Crown Dependencies.
On 26 June, we wrote to suppliers of medicines to the UK from or via the EU or European Economic Area setting out our continuing multi-layered approach to support continuity of supply of medicines and medical products from 31 October.
Further details can be found at the following link:
Ahead of 31 October, all necessary funding will be made available to support our preparations. On 31 July, HM Treasury announced an additional £434 million made available to help ensure continuity of supply of vital medicines and medical products, including through freight capacity, warehousing and stockpiling.
Patients, hospitals and community pharmacies do not need to and should not undertake any stockpiling. Separate guidance issued to all National Health Service trusts, pharmacies and general practices has informed them of our plans and advising them that they can expect to be able to continue accessing medicines through their existing supply routes when the UK leaves the EU.
The Department’s Medicine Supply Team has well established procedures to deal with medicine shortages and works closely with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the pharmaceutical industry, NHS England and others operating in the supply chain to help prevent shortages and to ensure that the risks to patients are minimised when they do arise.
Both the 2019 Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing and Access and the statutory branded medicines pricing scheme have detailed arrangements for how companies can request an increase to the NHS list price for a product.