Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to extend the range of healthcare professionals permitted to administer and prescribe low-risk medicines.

The Department has no current plans to extend the range of healthcare professionals permitted to administer low-risk medicines. Under a patient specific direction, a registered prescriber can give a third-party clear instruction to enable them to administer prescribed medicines to a patient. This means of administering medicines is used widely in the health service under current powers.

A range of National Health Service professionals can train to prescribe medicines now including nurses, pharmacists, paramedics, midwives, physiotherapists and optometrists.

The Medicines and Medical Devices Bill, currently before Parliament, will allow us to continue to update the professions who can train to supply medicines or prescribe them where it is safe and appropriate to do so, replacing the European Communities Act 1972. Any regulatory change to supply or prescribing powers would be subject to public consultation.