Early Day Motion - Government response to the recommendations of the First Do No Harm report (21 October 2021)

Summary

This is an Early Day Motion tabled in the House of Commons on the 21st October 2021, which notes disappointment with the UK Government’s response to the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review. The motion calls on the Government to reconsider its response and to implement all nine recommendations in their entirety, and to ensure patient safety remains paramount in any changes to regulatory approval frameworks.

Content

What is an Early Day Motion?

Early Day Motions are motions submitted for debate in the House of Commons for which no day has been fixed - as such very few are debated. They are used to put on record the views of individual MPs or to draw attention to specific events or campaigns. By attracting the signatures of other MPs, they can be used to demonstrate the level of parliamentary support for a particular cause or point of view.[1]

Early Day Motion 556 - Government response to the recommendations of the First Do No Harm report

This Early Day Motion was sponsored by Emma Hardy MP, Hywel Williams MP, Ben Lake MP and Liz Saville Roberts MP. It reads as follows:

That this House notes the Government’s response to the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, First Do No Harm; notes with disappointment its failure to implement all nine recommendations in full; further notes that the creation of a new independent Redress Agency for people harmed by medicines and medical devices has been refused outright and that, despite the clear findings of the Report, there is no offer of compensation for any of the victims or their families; notes that the recommended mandatory reporting of all financial and non-pecuniary interests and relevant payments involving healthcare professionals is proposed not on a single database as recommended, but dispersed on individual employer’s websites; notes with concern calls from the pharmaceutical industry for the Secretary of State to use the Medicines and Medical Devices Act 2021 to mandate rapid timelines for regulatory approvals in the face of the Report’s findings of the suppression of negative research and outcomes, and the silencing of patient voices; notes the lack of commitment to mandatory reporting, underpinned by legislation, of all payments made to teaching hospitals, research institutions and individual clinicians by the pharmaceutical and medical device industries; and calls on the Government to reconsider its response and to implement all nine recommendations in their entirety and to ensure patient safety remains paramount in any changes to regulatory approval frameworks.

References

1. UK Parliament, What are Early Day Motions?, Last Accessed 15 September 2020

Related reading

• Department of Health and Social Care, Government response to the report of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, 21 July 2021
• Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, First Do No Harm, July 2020
• Independent Report of the Patient Reference Group – response to the report of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, 21 July 2021
• Kath Sansom, Regulatory flaws: Women were catastrophically failed in the mesh, Primodos and Sodium Valproate tragedies, 15 April 2021
• Patient Safety Learning, A year on from the Cumberlege Review: Initial reflections on the Government’s response, 23 July 2021