Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made on where medicine shortage sits on the Department for Health and Social Care risk register, and what is its corresponding 'RAG' rating.

The current Department’s High Level Risk Register categorises the risk to the continuity of medicine supply as amber-red after consideration of the mitigations available. This assessment is continuously reviewed in light of changing external risks to the supply of medicines and actions are taken to further reduce the risk of medicine shortages.

When medicine supply issues occur, we have established processes and systems in place to limit the impact on patients. This has been set out in detail in our recent publications Managing a robust and resilient supply of medicines and A guide to the systems and processes for managing medicines supply issues in England.