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.

The Department is working urgently with manufacturers and wholesalers to explore what can be done to expedite deliveries and bring forward stock they have to help ensure it gets to where it is needed, to meet demand as quickly as possible and support access to these vital medicines, including antibiotics for children.

Serious Shortage Protocols have been issued across the United Kingdom for penicillin medicines, which will help mitigate local supply issues by allowing pharmacists to supply alternative forms of the medicine, or alternative antibiotics, if they do not have the 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.