Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential future litigation risk to the NHS in the event that chemicals in NHS-prescribed e-cigarettes are found to be detrimental to public health.

No assessment has been made as there are currently no medicinal e-cigarettes available prescribed via the National Health Service. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) published updated guidance on 29 October 2021 to encourage manufacturers to bring a medicinal e-cigarette to market.

For a manufacturer to achieve a medicinal licence, products would need to meet the standards of quality, safety, and efficacy expected of medicinal products. There would be a duty to continually monitor the performance of their product, submit vigilance reports to the MHRA when incidents occur and take appropriate safety action if required.