NHS: Drugs
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average waiting time is for an application for a controlled drug licence to be decided.
Answered by Sarah Jones
The Home Office Drug and Firearms Licensing Unit (DFLU) considers applications for premises and company specific controlled drug licences. All applications are considered individually and on their merits, after undertaking a physical site visit- if one is needed- and reviewing the evidence submitted to support an application.
Application processing times can vary considerably depending on whether a site visit is needed or if the application can be decided with a paper-based review. Other factors, including site location and resourcing, company availability, timeliness of the submission of any additional information requested will also be relevant. On this basis, we do not publish average processing times as a statistical average may not be representative of the customer journey.
Operational pressures in DFLU have meant that there are currently higher caseloads than we would wish, which has resulted in extended lead times for consideration of some applications at this time.
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