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Sarah Wollaston, chair of the House of Commons health and social care committee, has written to health and social care secretary Matt Hancock to ask him to publish a list of medicines and medical products that have been identified as at risk of supply issues in the case of a ‘no-deal’ Brexit.
In a letter to Hancock, dated 21 November 2018, Wollaston asks that the published list sets out clearly any medicines that cannot be switched without creating additional risk to patients and where careful review would be required, and the contingency plans that the Department of Health and Social Care is putting in place.
The letter expresses the committee’s concerns over a no-deal scenario in terms of patient access to medicines and medical products, the costs of contingency planning, and non-disclosure agreements.
Wollaston also asks for clarification on the rationale behind requesting companies to sign non-disclosure agreements, and for more information about the content of the agreements. She says that while non-disclosure agreements may be appropriate to protect the commercial interests of the companies involved, the committee was concerned that they might pose a barrier to the disclosure of information that may be in the public interest.
