Most people take the day-to-day functioning of the NHS for granted. But the flow of medical supplies — cancer medicines, vaccines, clinical devices, and blood — are dependent on complex supply chains across Europe which are designed to be traded within the single market.
In a leaked letter between NHS chiefs in July, Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, warned: “Public health and disease control coordination could also suffer, and our efforts to reassure, retain and attract the European workforce on which the NHS relies could also be jeopardized.”
Around 45 million packs of medicine go from the UK to Europe every month and 37 million packs travel in the opposite direction. Every single one of those needs to be licensed and tested and certified by the European medicines regulator.
At the moment, a test in the UK is valid in the EU and a test in the EU is valid in the UK. If the UK left without a deal, that would cease to be the case, according to the Brexit Health Alliance.
Licenses held by a UK company to sell medicines in the EU would become void overnight, meaning that 361 products (37% of the market) could not be sold in Europe. Many of those are life-saving drugs.
Conversely, where licenses were held in the EU, there would likely be the disruption of their supply in the UK. That means the UK would be forced to find an arrangement for the 978 medicines sold across the country which were issued under EU rules.
What is the government’s plan? Well, the government has announced that it would simply accept the testing of medicines if they’re carried out by a member state.
As for UK medicines heading to the EU, the government would merely hope the EU offered the same deal in return. Health experts are not reassured.
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