Sam Friedrich
Henrietta Hughes, the patient safety commissioner for England, has said that she is still waiting for a decision on financial redress for people affected by sodium valproate.
In her Hughes report, published in February 2024, the commissioner included a call for the government to set up a two-stage redress scheme, while in February 2026, two years after her report was published, Hughes said that she planned to approach the then prime minister Keir Starmer on the issue.
Hughes also noted in her annual report for 2025/2026, published in June 2026, that there had been a “stark lack of government response” on the redress issue, adding that “at the time of writing, the government is yet to announce a redress scheme or a timeline for providing a substantive response to the recommendations“.
Speaking at the Royal College of Pharmacy’s (RCPharm) annual conference, held in London on 6 November 2026, Hughes said: “We still are waiting for the response to my report from nearly three years ago, where I set out how the government could institute a redress scheme.
“We have groups of patients who’ve been harmed in the past, and they have not received the justice that they deserve.”
In a parliamentary debate, held on on 29 October 2026, Cat Smith, MP for Lancaster and Wyre, highlighted that people were still waiting for a response to the Hughes report’s recommendations for redress.
During the debate, health minister Dame Diana Johnson, who’s brief includes patient safety, replied: “I am also determined to make progress on the government’s response to the Hughes report, and I will of course work closely with devolved governments in doing that.“
“I am conscious that it has been more than two years since professor Hughes published her report, and more than five years since the independent medicines and medical devices safety review was issued by Baroness Cumberlege,” she added.
“We know that the lives of women, children and their families have been profoundly changed. Their voices must be heard as we address these issues with the urgency demanded.”
In other remarks made at the RCPharm conference, Hughes noted that when she started in her post in 2022, three babies per month were still being born having been exposed to valproate.
However, NHS data shows that the exposure rate has reduced considerably. Between October 2025 and March 2026, 7 women were prescribed valproate while pregnant, compared with 67 women during a similar six-month period in 2018, the data showed.
“One of the things I wanted to say is thank you so much, everyone here, for the work that you’ve done in this,” Hughes told delegates.
In more general comments about reducing medicines harm, Hughes said that having spent a lot of time with pharmacists as a hospital doctor and a GP, they “are the last line of defence when it comes to keeping patients safe”.
