Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of current derogation handover of specialised medications from tertiary centres to primary care in the West Midlands; and what steps her Department is taking to improve medication access for pulmonary fibrosis via these shared care arrangements.

Specialised medicines are generally not appropriate for use in primary care as they require specialist oversight and may be subject to confidential pricing frameworks.

Discussions are currently underway with specialist respiratory centres in the West Midlands regarding the prescribing of high-cost idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis medicines through shared care arrangements with non-specialist secondary care providers.

These arrangements would allow responsibilities for prescribing and monitoring to be appropriately allocated, while maintaining oversight from specialist multidisciplinary teams where required. The intention is to support more accessible prescribing closer to patients, while ensuring these specialist medicines continue to be prescribed safely.