Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he last made an assessment of the level of stockpiling of erythromycin required in preparation for (a) a second wave of the covid-19 outbreak and (b) the end of the transition period; and if he will publish that assessment.

Our priority is to ensure that patients continue to have access to medicines and medical products they need. We are working closely with industry, the National Health Service and others in the supply chain to ensure that precautions are in place to reduce the likelihood of future shortages

The Government continues to hold stockpiles of medicines, including many of those medicines raised in the Rt. hon. Member’s questions, to cope with a range of scenarios, and robust contingency planning continues to ensure that the country is prepared for a possible second peak of COVID-19 infections and the end of the Transition Period.

The Essential Medicines Buffer Stock (EMBS) supports the NHS in the event of a pandemic or other health emergency by ensuring the continued availability of medicines that are in routine use within the NHS in the event that the supply chain is interrupted. Volumes of the medicines listed in the EBMS for the requested dates are shown in the following table. The original EMBS contracts ended in October 2019 and the current ones expire on 31 March 2021.