Higher safety standards for medical equipment

The UK government has today announced some of the strongest safety measures in the world for medical devices, protecting patients and letting them access new treatments more quickly.

Whichever way you voted in the EU membership referendum, the majority of those who voted opted to leave, and Britain having done so, it would be stupid not to take advantage of the positive opportunities that gives us to set standards tailored to Britain's needs,

Setting our own standards does not have to mean a race to the bottom: it can and sometimes should mean setting higher standards than the EU.

An example is medical equipment safety standards, which can and should be set even higher as we learn lessons from the pandemic and from other recent events and learning in the field of medicine.

  • Now we have left the EU, Britain can set our own standards and use this power to improve how medical devices like hearing aids, x-ray machines and insulin pumps are regulated by the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
  • The UK government will use that flexibility and has today announced new changes that will strengthen the MHRA’s powers and create a new, UKCA stamp of certification to replace the EU’s CE mark – alongside a new regulatory framework that will encourage responsible innovation to develop the latest technologies.
  • These changes will save lives by protecting patients and the public while making it easier and quicker for patients to access the medical devices and treatments they need.

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