Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Kamall on 15 March (HL6625), why antiviral treatments for COVID-19 can only be prescribed by a clinician within a COVID Medicine Delivery Unit and are not available for general practice prescribing and purchase directly from pharmacies.

Eligibility for treatments for non-hospitalised patients at highest risk following infection with COVID-19 is set out in a United Kingdom-wide clinical access policy agreed by the Government’s Chief Medical Officer. This policy provides four treatment options; an intravenous monoclonal antibody; an intravenous antiviral; and two oral antiviral options. The decision on the choice of treatment is led by the prescribing clinician who will consider the relative effectiveness of the medicines and the suitability for the individual patient. The intravenous treatments are typically provided in a hospital clinic setting and the oral treatments can usually be sent to the patient’s home or collected on the patient’s behalf from a named pharmacy.

Due to the current range of treatment options available, the targeted cohort of patients receiving treatment - many of whom will be managing health conditions with the support of hospital specialists - and the need to carefully manage available supply, approximately 100 COVID Medicine Delivery Units in England offer an integrated triage and treatment service. COVID-19 treatments within the UK are only available to eligible patients following a clinical assessment and are provided free of charge. These treatments cannot currently be purchased as an over-the-counter medicine. Any decisions on the longer-term deployment of COVID-19 treatments beyond the highest risk groups will be subject to the outcomes of the PANORAMIC study on the effectiveness of antivirals in the UK population.