Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of requiring two clinicians to be present in order to access medication in the NHS.

National Health Service organisations will already have their own policies on access to medicines in a clinical setting. Additionally, the General Medical Council has good practice in prescribing and managing medicines and devices which sets out prescriber responsibilities relating to the prescriptions they sign.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the Royal College of Nursing have issued Professional Guidance on the Administration of Medicines in Healthcare Settings and Professional guidance on the safe and secure handling of medicines. Staff must be trained, and access to the locked medicines cupboard is by approved healthcare professionals only. In many organisations two healthcare professionals will be required to sign out any controlled drug and/or other medicines for administration to patients in line with organisational risk assessments.

It is the responsibility of individual health and care professionals to work within the requirements of their regulated profession, which is set by the relevant regulatory body. The nine professional health and care regulators are overseen by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care who carry out annual reviews of regulators’ performance.

Further the Care Quality Commission, the independent regulator of health and social care, monitor, inspect and regulate service providers and have powers to act against providers that do not have adequate systems in place to ensure the proper and safe use of medicine.