Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department’s ongoing VPAS pre-negotiation workshops, if he will publish the (a) minutes and (b) attendees of those workshops.

The objective of the pre-negotiation workshops was to enable a mutual understanding of the impact of the current voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing and access (VPAS) upon the different organisations represented and to discuss the potential objectives and priorities for a new voluntary scheme. The discussions in the workshops will feed into the upcoming negotiation of a successor to the 2019 VPAS. In order to facilitate a transparent and candid discussion, participants agreed that all contributions and resulting outputs would be kept confidential to those who attended.

The following organisations were invited to the workshops:

Industry bodies (including representatives of their member companies):

- Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry;

- British Generic Manufacturers Association;

- Ethical Medicines Industry Group;

- BioIndustry Association.

Patient organisations and civil society organisations:

- Cancer52;

- The Blood Cancer Alliance;

- The Charity Medicines Access Coalition;

- National Voices;

- The Patients Association;

- Alzheimer’s Research UK;

- Anthony Nolan;

- Cystic Fibrosis Trust;

- Genetic Alliance UK;

- The Association of Medical Research Charities;

- Breast Cancer Now;

- Myeloma UK;

- Office of Health Economics;

- King’s Fund;

- NHS Confederation.