Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken as a consequence of the roundtable event it co-hosted in February 2015 to explore indepth the issues around the culture of unlicensed and off-label prescriptions.

The Department and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence co-hosted a roundtable event to explore in depth the issues around the culture on unlicensed and off-label prescribing in general. Many stakeholders attended this including Breast Cancer Now, Cancer Research UK, Cure Parkinson’s Trust, NHS England and numerous other National Health Service organisations.

A number of areas were identified where further work could help improve matters, including:

- supporting clinicians to identify the latest robust evidence on patient care and take it up in their own practice; and

- supporting and mapping clear pathways for innovators and those who want to "re-purpose" drugs.

Officials have since been engaging with stakeholders to progress outputs associated with this event.