Medical Equipment: Northern Ireland

(asked on 19th April 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether medical devices benefit from the same grace period of medicines in terms of their transport to Northern Ireland from Great Britain; and what steps he is taking to ensure there are no interruptions to the supply of those devices to Northern Ireland.


Answered by
Edward Argar Portrait
Edward Argar
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This question was answered on 26th April 2021

Medical devices can continue to move into Northern Ireland without checks. Medical devices are goods marked with a conformity assessment marking – for example, the CE mark or UKCA mark, and are regulated under a different set of rules from medicines. As long as medical devices are compliant with the European Union acquis, they can be placed on the Northern Ireland market. Medical devices are not required to comply with the requirements of the EU Falsified Medicines Directive and they are not included in the grace period for medicines.

The Department, in consultation with the devolved administrations and Crown Dependencies, is working closely with the health and care system, suppliers and industry to put in place robust measures to help ensure the continued supply of medicines and medical devices to the whole of the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland.

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