Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps are being taken to ensure cumulative drug toxicity and polypharmacy risks are actively monitored in people prescribed sodium valproate.

There are established systems within the National Health Service to ensure that cumulative drug toxicity and polypharmacy risks are actively monitored in people prescribed sodium valproate. In practice, this involves establishing arrangements for assessing, reviewing, and monitoring the ongoing need for treatments, and, given that sodium valproate is almost invariably initiated in secondary care, clear shared-care arrangements between secondary and primary care clinicians, supported by the involvement of pharmacists, to minimise the risks associated with cumulative drug toxicity and polypharmacy.