Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to provide additional support with sourcing medicines to community pharmacy teams.

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.

The continued demand for antibiotics to treat Strep A is making it difficult for some pharmacies to obtain certain antibiotics. We have been taking decisive action to address these temporary issues and to improve access to these medicines. These actions include working with manufacturers and wholesalers to expedite deliveries, bring forward stock they have to help ensure it gets to where it is needed and to boost supply to meet demand as quickly as possible. Deliveries to wholesalers and pharmacies are currently being made, with more expected in the coming days and weeks.

Eight Serious Shortage Protocols have been issued to allow pharmacists to supply an alternative form of penicillin V, or alternative antibiotic, if they do not have the specific product stated on the prescription. Advice has also been provided to pharmacists and general practitioners on the management of the current supply issues, including direction to use alternatives, as necessary.

Community pharmacies make an important contribution to the National Health Service, supporting patients across the country and we are taking action to support them. The Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework 2019-24 five-year deal commits £2.592 billion each year to the sector. The deal sets out the vision for how community pharmacy will support the NHS Long Term Plan by being better integrated into the NHS, delivering more clinical services and becoming the first port of call for minor illness. On 22 September we announced a £100 million investment into pharmacy for the remainder of the five-year deal.