The enormous waste of resources due to red tape described by Polly Toynbee (Business is haunted by Brexit – and this safety mark fiasco is its latest nightmare, 4 August) is not just confined to British business – it has severely affected UK research in the area of medical devices.
Scientists need to partner with manufacturers in order to get these devices out of the lab and into the clinic. But we and others have experienced our industrial partners withdrawing support and pulling out of agreements because it has been simply too costly to embark on double certification of potential products.
This has been a blight on valuable further research in this area, on devices that could have saved the NHS large sums in reduction of ill health and improvement of treatment outcomes. Unfortunately, we are now faced with yet more uncertainty because we are told that it is unclear whether the U-turn applies to medical devices or not.
Roger Bayston
Professor emeritus, surgical infection, University of Nottingham
• As a retired product compliance engineer for a FTSE 100 company, I read with interest Polly Toynbee’s article. When the UK was a member of the EU, we had a vote in the European parliament on any new EU directives coming forward. We will now have to change UK laws to keep in step, but have no say on new EU laws.
In addition, we have no control over the EU’s CE marking process; we just have to accept EU updates. Instead of “take back control” – the slogan used by the Brexiters – it should have read “let’s lose control”.
Ian White
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
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