To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to help tackle shortages of medicines in pharmacies.

The Department has a responsibility to work with United Kingdom medicine license holders, to help ensure continuity of supply. We monitor and manage medicine supply at a national level, so that stocks remain available to meet regional and local demand. There are approximately 14,000 medicines licensed for supply in the UK, and the overwhelming majority are in good supply. The medicine supply chain is complex, global, and highly regulated, and supply issues can be caused by a range of factors. For example, suppliers can encounter manufacturing problems, difficulty accessing raw materials, and surges in demand. These are commonly cited as the drivers of recent supply issues, which have affected many countries, not just the UK.

Whilst we can’t always prevent supply issues, we have a range of well-established tools and processes to mitigate risks to patients at a national level. These include close and regular engagement with suppliers, use of alternative strengths or forms of a medicine to allow patients to remain on the same product, expediting regulatory procedures, sourcing unlicensed imports from abroad, adding products to the restricted exports and hoarding list, use of Serious Shortage Protocols, and issuing National Health Service communications to provide management advice and information on the issue to healthcare professionals including pharmacists, so they can advise and support their patients.