Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Answer of 22 November 2023 to Question 1712 on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Drugs, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of her Department’s processes to (a) manage and (b) mitigate problems in the supply of medicines used for the management of ADHD.

Medicine supply problems can occur for several reasons; for example, they can be due to manufacturing difficulties, regulatory problems, problems with the supply of raw materials, sudden demand spikes or from issues which are related to the distribution of the product.

We have well-established processes for managing and mitigating medicine supply issues, which involve working with the pharmaceutical industry, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, NHS England, the devolved governments and others operating in the supply chain to help ensure patients have access to the treatments they need.

Disruptions to the supply of medicines used for the management of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have been primarily driven by issues which have resulted in capacity constraints at key manufacturing sites. The Department has been working closely with the respective manufacturers and some issues have now been resolved. However, we know that there continue to be disruptions to the supply of some other medicines, which are expected to resolve by the end of 2023 or in early 2024.