Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government which minister is directly responsible for the ‘Homecare Medicines Service’; and what arrangements are in place to (1) coordinate, and (2) evaluate the service.

The Minister of State for Health, Will Quince MP, is the minister responsible for the Homecare Medicines Service.

Providers of Homecare Medicine services to National Health Service patients do so under framework agreements which may be held at different authority levels as follows:

- National level, via NHS England;

- Regional level, via NHS procurement hubs; or

- Local level via hospital trusts.

This therefore requires a high degree of centralised co-ordination for which the National Homecare Medicines Committee (NHMC) supports and advises the NHS on matters relating to homecare medicines services.

Homecare medicines services are regulated by three different regulators, namely the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the General Pharmaceutical Council, and the Care Quality Commission, depending on the service being provided. The NHMC acts as the national focus for developing and improving administration and governance processes for homecare medicines services and has published a large volume of guidance and templates to support consistent best practice across the country.

Each Chief Pharmacist within each NHS trust is the responsible officer for the homecare medicines services that the hospital provides and is responsible for the monitoring and performance management of its contracts for these services.