Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Brexit Minister (in respect of his Brexit Minister responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 3:05 pm on 12 June 2019.
I thank the Member for that question. I recently met with Public Health Wales to discuss, in particular, the impact of Brexit. The review that we have been undertaking proposed a small number of actions that we're taking forward, including clinical input into decision making around some of the steps that would flow from a Brexit scenario, improving the robustness of some of the procurement that we have in relation to stock that is usually purchased by health boards, other than that which is held centrally by NHS Wales's shared services, and also maintaining, or improving, the awareness of various stakeholders in the health sector of the processes that we've already put in place to manage circumstances where certain supplies might come under pressure.
She will know that we have purchased warehouse capacity in south Wales to maintain stocks of medical supplies, which continues, and we work with the UK Government to maintain the arrangements currently in place in relation to the buffer for medical supplies. Our advice to people in Wales and to health boards and to practitioners is that they should not be stockpiling and they should not be seeking or issuing longer prescriptions than otherwise would be the case.