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 tackle shortages of Letrozole.

A team within the Department deals specifically with medicine supply problems arising both in the community and in hospitals. It has well-established procedures to deal with medicine shortages, whatever the cause, and works closely with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the pharmaceutical industry, NHS England and others operating in the supply chain to help prevent shortages and to ensure that the risks to patients are minimised when shortages do arise.

The team is aware of recent supply constraints affecting letrozole, however, other suppliers remain in stock and can support the gap in the market. Therefore, pharmacies should be able to obtain letrozole via their usual wholesaler routes. In addition, there are currently no supply constraints with the branded medicine of letrozole 2.5mg tablets, Femara.