Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether additional resources have been provided to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to support winter‑related medicine safety surveillance.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is an executive agency of the Department and regulates medicines for human use, medical devices, and blood components for transfusion in the United Kingdom, with responsibility for ensuring medicines meet appropriate standards of safety, quality, and efficacy.

Safety surveillance activity at the MHRA is funded through the annual service fee. Recent and sufficient fee increases mean that this funding now covers all required surveillance activity, with separate Living with COVID funding helping to support periods of peak demand.