Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department plans to take for people from at-risk groups, as identified in NICE Public Health Guideline 56, who are no longer able to access appropriate licensed vitamin D maintenance treatments as a result of only over the counter treatments being available under NHS England proposals.

The Department has no such plans. NHS England recently consulted on conditions for which over the counter items should not routinely be prescribed in primary care, ‘A consultation on guidance for CCGs’ and also published a full Equality and Health Inequalities Impact Assessment which covers groups protected by the Equality Act 2010 and those on low income. A copy of the document is attached.

NHS England’s consultation document proposed that people who have demonstrated vitamin D deficiency will continue to have access to vitamin D on prescription. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence Public Health Guideline 56 refers to widened access to vitamin D for those who are at risk of vitamin D deficiency, including the ability to purchase appropriate supplements if needed and access support from health care professionals to be able to safeguard their own health.

The Advisory Committee on Borderline Substances states that vitamins and minerals should be prescribed only in the management of actual or potential vitamin or mineral deficiency, and are not to be prescribed as dietary supplements. We understand that NHS England’s consultation is in line with this. Prescribing vitamin D for maintenance would be classed as a treatment for prevention or as a dietary supplement.