Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Section 9 Conflicts of interest in the Policy paper entitled Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review: update report on government implementation, published on 22 December 2022, and the Patient Representative Working Group, what patient groups were represented on that Working Group; how those patient groups were chosen and by whom; how many people in total were in the Working Group; and how many times the Working Group had met as on 6 January 2023.

The Department selected patient representatives through engagement with NHS England and the Devolved Governments. Our intention was to form a voluntary group that best represented patients across the four nations. Since March 2022, we have held two Patient Representative Groups (PRG). Four patient representatives attended each of the sessions. We expect to hold another PRG early in 2023 to discuss feedback on pilot systems.