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Written question asked by Carolyn Harris (Labour) on Monday, 23 March 2026, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 25 March 2026. It was answered by Zubir Ahmed (Labour) on Tuesday, 31 March 2026 on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.

Yellow Card Scheme

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many reports submitted by members of the public through the Yellow Card scheme resulted in enforcement action by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, in each of the past five years, in relation to the sale of (a) counterfeit medicines, (b) unapproved medicines in the UK and (c) medicines which are authorised for supply in the UK but supplied through unregulated channels.

Answer

I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave on 31 March 2026 to Question 122732.

The Yellow Card scheme collects reports of suspected adverse drug reactions, medical device incidents, and concerns about the safety and quality of medicines. Where appropriate, reports raising potential counterfeit, compliance, or safety issues may be referred to relevant teams within the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for consideration of regulatory or enforcement action.

However, this information is not held in a format that readily allows the MHRA to identify how many reports submitted by members of the public resulted in enforcement action in relation to counterfeit medicines, unapproved medicines in the UK, and medicines which are authorised for supply in the United Kingdom but supplied through unregulated channels. Extracting this information from Yellow Card reports would require a manual review of individual records and would incur disproportionate cost. The MHRA is therefore unable to provide the requested figures for each of the past five years.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
122733
Session
2024-26
Subjects
Counterfeit manufacturing Licensing Drugs Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency Yellow card scheme
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk