Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the first Serious Medicines Shortage Protocol will be ready; and where that protocol will be published.

Serious Shortage Protocols are an additional tool to manage and mitigate medication shortages and may be used in the exceptional and rare situation when other measures have been exhausted or are likely to be ineffective.

Operational guidance is still being developed with stakeholders, including where any protocol(s) would be published. The use of a Serious Shortage Protocol has not, to date, been required.