Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment the Government has made of the effect of HRT shortages on (a) work attendance and (b) productivity.

The Department has not made an assessment of the effect of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) shortages on work attendance and productivity.

We are aware of ongoing supply issues with some HRT preparations due to a range of issues including manufacturing issues, regulatory issues and problems accessing the raw pharmaceutical ingredient as well as commercial decisions made by some companies to divest these products. While some HRT products are affected by supply issues, alternative HRT products have remained available.

We have been working closely with all suppliers of HRT preparations to maintain overall supply to patients and anticipate the supply situation will start to improve from the end of February 2020.