Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of authorising pharmacists to supply prescription-only medicines without a prescription to patients who have previously been prescribed those medicines during the covid-19 outbreak.

The Human Medicines Regulations 2012 outline provisions for emergency supply by a pharmacist, including one when a pandemic is declared or imminently anticipated. This specific provision has been utilised to allow NHS England and NHS Improvement to commission a local enhanced service - where one is needed - to enable pharmacists to supply medicines, which patients have been previously prescribed, without a prescription, and at the same time reducing administrative burden on pharmacies.