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 ensure the continued supply of epilepsy medication in the event that the UK exits the transition period without a trade agreement with the EU.

The United Kingdom left the European Union on 31 January and is now in a Transition Period until 31 December 2020. During this time, it remains our objective to negotiate a future relationship with the EU and in our respective published negotiating documents, we have both stated objectives to reach an agreement on trade in goods. The UK’s published approach sets out how we want to facilitate trade in medicinal products and support high levels of patient safety.

The Department has well-established procedures to deal with medicine shortages, whatever their cause, and will always work closely with the pharmaceutical industry and National Health Service to help ensure patients continue to have access to the medicines and treatments they need, including epilepsy medication, under all scenarios.