Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what definition they use to define a medicine shortage.

For the purposes of reporting to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), the DHSC Reporting Requirements for Medicines Shortages and Discontinuations guidance document states that a supply shortage of a presentation of health service medicine occurs when supply does not meet patient demand at a national level, irrespective of whether it applies to the entire United Kingdom, or only to one or more of England, Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland as individual UK nations. However, we have a variety of escalation routes, and we will investigate issues on a case-by-case basis regardless of whether they fit this definition.