Hazardous Substances: Information Sharing
(asked on 18th November 2025) - 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 is taking to review how information on potentially hazardous medicinal products is shared across the NHS.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is responsible for ensuring the safety of medicines and medical devices, and it continually reviews product safety.
When a safety issue is identified, the MHRA communicates with healthcare professionals and stakeholders through various channels, such as the GOV.UK website, direct emails, and safety alerts, and may use different methods depending on the urgency and impact of the issue.
The MHRA’s three-year Strategy for Improving Communications aims to deliver more coordinated, targeted, and effective safety communications to healthcare professionals and patients using the best available channels.
NHS England has stipulated that all large providers of National Health Services must designate a Medication Safety Officer. They are mandated to implement medication safety within their organisations and are updated regularly on current issues and learning.
NHS England is also reducing risk to staff by increasing the availability of ready to administer products through its Transforming Aseptic Services Programme, with further information available at the following link:
The Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) Medicines Optimisation Quality Statement, a copy of which is attached, is focused on ensuring that patients are able to access their medicines safely. The CQC would therefore expect providers to be following their organisations processes and national guidance, where relevant, to ensure that this happens. Organisations providing care need to ensure that staff have the relevant information available to them to keep patients safe through appropriate medicines use, as well as supporting them to undertake their roles safely.