Asked by: Andrew Western (Labour - Stretford and Urmston)
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 ensure an adequate supply of antibiotics for children, especially amoxicillin and clarithromycin, in the context of Strep A cases.
Answered by Will Quince
We are taking decisive action to address temporary supply issues with some antibiotics that can be used to treat Strep A and to improve access to these medicines by continuing to work with manufacturers and wholesalers to expedite deliveries, bring forward stock they have to help ensure it gets to where it is needed and to boost supply to meet demand as quickly as possible.
Eight Serious Shortage Protocols have been issued for penicillin medicines, which will help mitigate local supply issues and allow pharmacists to supply alternative forms of the medicine, or alternative antibiotics, if they don’t have the specific product stated on the prescription.
The Department has well-established procedures to deal with medicine supply issues and works closely with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the pharmaceutical industry, NHS England and others within the supply chain to help prevent shortages and to ensure that the risks to patients are minimised when they do arise.