Your report (Tory divisions over Brexit deepen amid row over no-deal dossier leak, 19 August) cites an official prediction of “severe extended delays to medicine supplies” after a no-deal Brexit. That would leave millions at increased risk of painful outcomes, and perhaps thousands at increased risk of death. What, specifically for each medicine, should patients, GPs and hospitals do about this?
The government says it tendered a £25m contract on 15 August to transport “time-sensitive shipments” from the EU and “ensure [that] supply of medical goods remains uninterrupted” after Brexit. However, “one in three generics manufacturers” are making their own arrangements due to “uncertainty around government plans”, according to a recent report in the Pharmaceutical Journal. And what about non-generics, including all medicines still under patent?
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, should now publish a list of exactly which medicines are at risk and of how much delay. For each medicine, patients, hospitals and doctors should be advised how to respond. Boris Johnson’s education presumably included Cicero’s “Salus populi suprema lex”: the health of the people is the highest law. Is Johnson’s motto “Salus populi minima lex”?
Michael Lipton
Emeritus professor of economics, University of Sussex, Brighton
• As a cancer patient with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia on second-line treatment, I asked my consultant haematologist whether the Imbruvica capsules I am taking, which are manufactured in Belgium, would still be available after a no-deal Brexit. She had no answer.
How many other cancer patients are in this situation, whereby their life-saving treatments may stop mid-course? Are there thousands or millions? And would the palliative-care facilities be sufficient to cope with a boom of cancer patients?
Angela Boyd
Wellington, Somerset
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