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 effectiveness of the fortnightly notification provided to medicine suppliers regarding medicine shortages.

NHS England’s medicines frameworks contain a contractual ask that requires all suppliers to update NHS England on their ability to supply their products to National Health Service hospitals.

This information is requested fortnightly and the responses are the basis by which NHS England’s medicines supply chain team assess current or potential upcoming medicines shortages.

This is a process designed to ensure the continuity of medicines supply for NHS hospitals and the information is not shared openly, but rather is only shared with specific relevant suppliers, who may be able to assist with the proposed mitigation plan.

A compilation of the mitigations is shared with all NHS hospitals and regional pharmacy procurement leads in order to support the implementation of the agreed actions locally.