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 that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency's medicine safety communications reach vulnerable groups during the winter period.

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.

In 2024, the MHRA issued a new Strategy for Improving Safety Communications which set out its aim to reach more patients directly with accessible and helpful safety communications, which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mhra-strategy-for-improving-safety-communications

The MHRA is committed to ensuring that all safety messages reach everyone who needs to receive them, especially those who are most vulnerable, including during the winter months.

Where patients, healthcare professionals, and other stakeholders need to be made aware of a safety issue, the MHRA will consider publishing and cascading a safety communication through multiple channels. These can include a National Patient Safety Alert, Recall, Drug Safety Update, or a Device Safety Information, as well as utilising the media and sustained and targeted campaigns on social media platforms aimed at reaching those at risk. These communications are issued to relevant target audiences including vulnerable patients and patient group representatives and are published on the MHRA’s website and delivered to healthcare professionals through various routes such as direct email or subscription communications.