Borderline Substances Advisory Committee

(asked on 30th December 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Advisory Committee on Borderline Substances, what assessment he has made of (a) the effectiveness of the Committee's performance and (b) its timeliness in responding to applications in 2019-20; and how many (i) products the Committee approved and (ii) new products were submitted to it for approval in that 12 month period.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 27th January 2021

The Advisory Committee on Borderline Substances (ACBS) Secretariat, ACBS members and industry representatives of the British Specialist Nutrition Association have concluded that the current application form and guidance are leading to inconsistent quality in submissions from manufacturers and a new application form and guidance is required As a result, a joint project with industry to improve ACBS processes began in 2019. This was paused due to COVID-19 and will resume as soon as the ACBS and its stakeholders are able to do so.

As part of the project, a bespoke report was produced and shared with the British Specialist Nutrition Association on 18 February 2020 showing that the average time for the ACBS to respond to all types of applications was 28 working days.

From 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020 the Committee approved 103 products and 35 new products were submitted to it for approval.

Reticulating Splines