The UK Government’s Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has been leading on UK-wide contingency plans to secure supplies of medicines, medical devices and clinical consumables in the event of a ‘no deal’ Brexit. DHSC have been asking pharmaceutical companies to increase their stockpiles of medicines, which it is considered may be impacted by delays at the UK Border, with the aim of ensuring that the UK has an additional six weeks supply on top of normal stocks. Alongside the stockpiling arrangements DHSC are looking at alternative transportation arrangements such as additional ferry capacity and the potential to airfreight medicines that may require specific cold chain transportation.
On 31 January the Scottish Government’s Chief Pharmaceutical Officer wrote to pharmacists in Scotland, as well as other health professionals with a management responsibility for medical supplies, to provide information and advice in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal.
The Chief Pharmaceutical Officer has also established an NHS Scotland Medicines Shortages Response Group consisting of a range of health professionals that will have a Scotland-specific focus on aspects such as information sharing with NHS England, ensuring that intelligence gathered from Scottish sources is taken into consideration as part of the overall UK position, and to consider what additional or different steps may be required to be taken in Scotland.
The expertise of this Group will provide critical information that the Scottish Government can feed in to a new UK-wide Medicines Shortages Response Group in the event of a ‘no deal’ exit.
Despite the continuing uncertainty around the timing and nature of the UK’s exit from the EU, the Scottish Government is continuing to engage fully with the UK Government and other devolved administrations to do everything we can to ensure that patients will continue to have access to the medicines and other medical supplies they need, as far as is possible. We will continue to work closely with NHS Scotland to ensure that all our preparations are focussed on the needs of patients in Scotland.