At a summit hosted by the Health Secretary and Health Minister to discuss the current difficulties with the supply of medicines, a package of tough new actions have been agreed to ensure that NHS patients can get the medicines they need, including the following:

• A more explicit duty for manufacturers and wholesalers to ensure that sufficient stocks of medicines are available to NHS patients.

• A series of targeted inspections by the MHRA with result that manufacturers and wholesalers will risk losing their licences and face prosecution if they breach legal duties on supply of medicines, and pharmacists and doctors risk being called to account by their professional bodies for breaching their ethical obligation to put patients first.

• Tougher standards for the issue of licences for medical wholesalers.

• Development of best practice guidance on how supply difficulties should be dealt with by doctors, pharmacists, manufacturers and wholesalers.