UK Device Manufacturers Must Contingency Plan For A Hard Brexit

12 Dec 2017

The compromise tone adopted last week by the UK government on key "phase 1" issues of an EU-UK Brexit deal was welcomed by UK health-care products industries, but with uncertainty over phase 2 – the future EU trade deal – still hampering UK business planning, local companies have no choice but to begin contingencies for a hard Brexit. Overseas stakeholders are also starting to distance themselves from a UK still unable to commit to a post-2019 relationship with the EU27.

Will we still be an EU notified body after 2019, when the UK is scheduled to leave the EU? This was one of the questions posed by BSI's head of medical devices Suzanne Halliday during Parliament's ongoing select health committee inquiry into the effects of Brexit. The focus was the impact on patients, and the supply and regulation of health-care products in the UK, post-EU. But Halliday was in fact one of the three panel members who were expected to be supplying the solutions.

In matters of Brexit, the questions still far outweigh the answers, and will continue to do so until the UK's...