Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what evaluation they have carried out of the potential cost savings from centralised procurement of common generic drugs in the light of evidence from other countries using high volume contracts.

On behalf of National Health Service secondary care establishments (hospitals) in England the Department’s Commercial Medicines Unit undertakes a long established centralised tender programme for framework agreements for generic medicines. This is in compliance with European Union procurement regulations.