Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to prevent a shortage of hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women.

The Department fully understands that maintaining access to hormone replacement therapy (HRT) medications is vitally important to many people in this country.

We are aware of ongoing supply issues with some HRT preparations due to manufacturing issues. We have been working closely with all suppliers of HRT medicines to maintain overall supply to patients. Although some HRT products are affected by supply issues, supplies of several other alternative HRT products remain available.

We are working with all stakeholders to ensure relevant information about the HRT products affected by supply issues and the products that remain available are shared across the National Health Service.

We will continue to work directly with all suppliers of the affected and alternative products to resolve the supply issues as soon as possible and ensure supplies of HRT products continue to remain available.