Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether GPs are required to (a) record and (b) report each instance when they have warned a female patient of the risks of prescribed valproate.

Within the terms of the valproate Pregnancy Prevention Programme, general practitioners (GPs) are required to identify all relevant women and girls in their practice who are taking valproate and refer them for specialist review annually. Specialists should review treatment and ensure that an Annual Risk Acknowledgement Form is signed by the prescriber and the patient and shared with the patient’s GP. GPs should check that the patient has a signed, up-to-date Annual Risk Acknowledgment Form each time a repeat prescription is issued. A GOV.UK toolkit on valproate use by women and girls is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/valproate-use-by-women-and-girls.