# Health Service Medical Supplies (Costs) Bill: factsheet and impact assessment

Source: https://www.keypedia.com/records/uk_mhra_guidance/uk-mhra/9377c69b-175f-463f-958f-d15ab2cf6254
Type: Guidance
Published: September 15, 2016
Updated: November 8, 2016

> The Health Service Medical Supplies (Costs) Bill serves as an amendment to the National Health Service Act 2006, establishing a revised regulatory framework for managing pharmaceutical expenditures within the UK's health system. Unlike an inspection report for a specific company, this guidance outlines broad legislative powers intended to safeguard the financial sustainability of the National Health Service (NHS). The primary issues addressed involve the rising costs of unbranded generic medicines and a previous lack of transparency across the medical supply chain. To resolve these issues, the government has introduced measures to mandate payments from pharmaceutical companies to control medicine costs. Notably, the government now holds the authority to reduce the price of unbranded generic medicines or impose specific controls, even when a company is a member of the voluntary Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS) for its branded products. Furthermore, the legislation enables new regulations requiring stakeholders—ranging from manufacturers to pharmacies—to provide detailed information on sales and purchases of health service medicines and medical supplies. Required actions for affected companies include adherence to newly established pricing limits and compliance with comprehensive data-reporting obligations to ensure market transparency and effective cost management.

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## Content

The factsheet provides information on the measures in the bill, which amends the National Health Service Act 2006. The impact assessment covers 2 individual impact assessments: the amendment of powers to enable the government to control the cost of health service medicines powers to enable the government to obtain information on medicines supplied to the health service The Health Service Medical Supplies (Costs) Bill makes amendments to: ensure that the government can require companies to make payments to control the cost of health service medicines enable the government to require companies to reduce the price of an unbranded generic medicine, or to impose other controls on that company’s unbranded medicine, even if the company is in the voluntary scheme (the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme) for their branded medicines enable the government to make regulations to obtain information on sales and purchases of health service medicines, medical supplies and other related products from all parts of the supply chain, from manufacturer to pharmacy, for defined purposes You can get more details on the Bill and its stages through Parliament on the Parliament website .

## Attachments

- [Health service medical supplies (costs) bill factsheet](/government/publications/health-service-medical-supplies-costs/health-service-medical-supplies-costs-bill-factsheet)
- [Health service medical supplies (costs) bill impact assessment](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7f14dae5274a2e8ab49ff4/med-supplies-billIA.pdf)