Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will publish a strategy to (a) tackle critical medicines shortages and (b) help improve the resilience of the community pharmacy sector.

The Department has no plans to publish a strategy. There are around 14,000 medicines licensed for supply in the United Kingdom, and most are in good supply. However, the medicine supply chain is highly regulated, complex, and global, which means that there can sometimes be supply issues which affect the UK, along with other countries around the world. Medicine supply problems may be caused by several factors, including manufacturing difficulties, regulatory non-compliance, demand surges, problems with the supply of raw materials, and issues related to distribution of the product. We work with industry, NHS England, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the devolved administrations, and other stakeholders to address these issues and help ensure patients continue to have access to the treatments they need. Communications about supply issues requiring active management are issued to healthcare professionals, and guidance is provided to help them manage their patients, where necessary.

Access to community pharmacies in England is good, with 80% of the population living within 20 minutes walking distance from a pharmacy, and twice as many pharmacies in the most deprived areas. We are funding pharmacies with £2.6 billion per year, and have invested up to an additional £645 million in the sector across this and next year, for the recently launched Pharmacy First service and the expansion of the existing Blood Pressure Check Service and Pharmacy Contraception Service. The contractual arrangements and funding for 2024/25 are being currently consulted on with Community Pharmacy England.