Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason there are medication shortages in the NHS; and if she will have discussions with the pharmaceutical industry on improving the supply.

There are approximately 14,000 licensed medicines and the overwhelming majority are in good supply. However, the medicine supply chain is highly regulated, complex, and global and supply disruption is a common issue which affects countries all around the world.

There are several reasons why supply can be disrupted, including manufacturing difficulties, regulatory non-compliance, access to raw materials, sudden demand spikes or distribution issues. Supply issues are driven by a range of factors, many of which are non-specific to the United Kingdom.

Whilst we cannot always prevent supply issues from occurring, the Department has a range of well-established processes and tools to manage them when they arise and help mitigate risks to patients. We work closely with industry, the National Health Service, and others to develop bespoke mitigation plans, which are tailored to each issue, to help ensure patients continue to have access to the medicines they need.

In some cases, an alternative supplier will be able to plug the gap with the exact same medicine. In others, patients will need to return to their clinician for review and consideration of the best treatment plan for them, for example switching to a different medicine. The team routinely shares up to date information about supply issues, for healthcare professionals, via an online Medicine Supply Tool, which is hosted by the Specialist Pharmacy Service.