Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to make an assessment of the adequacy of the system for prescription (a) charges and (b) exemptions as a result of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak.

There are no plans to make such an assessment or to change the system for prescription charges and exemptions. Prescription charges are a valuable income source for the National Health Service and are particularly important given increasing demands on the NHS. Extensive arrangements are already in place to help people access NHS prescriptions, including a broad range of NHS prescription charge exemptions.