MHRA UK Drug & Device Safety Alerts & Recalls Scraper

Here is one real result, with every field the actor returns:

{
  "reference": "NatPSA/2026/002/MHRA",
  "slug": "national-patient-safety-alert-class-1-medicines-recall-notification-recall-of-quetiapine-oral-suspension-unlicensed-medicine-manufactured-by-eaststone-limited-due-to-a-potential-for-overdosing-natpsa-slash-2026-slash-002-slash-mhr",
  "contentId": "0873d16c-62f3-46f3-a337-909bddfaeea2",
  "title": "National Patient Safety Alert: Class 1 Medicines Recall Notification: Recall of Quetiapine Oral Suspension (unlicensed medicine), manufactured by Eaststone Limited due to a potential for overdosing, NatPSA/2026/002/MHRA",
  "alertType": "National patient safety alert",
  "alertTypeCode": "national-patient-safety",
  "documentType": "medical_safety_alert",
  "issuedDate": "2026-01-29",
  "firstPublished": "2026-01-29T12:13:05+00:00",
  "lastUpdated": "2026-01-29T12:13:05+00:00",
  "summary": "Eaststone Limited is initiating a recall of all batches of quetiapine oral suspension products due to a potential risk of overdose, which could have consequences for the safety of patients.",
  "issue": "Eaststone Limited have informed MHRA that the formula they have used to manufacture all batches of quetiapine oral suspension products is incorrect. The active content is twice the amount that it should be which could lead to overdosing.",
  "actionRequired": "The action to recall should be coordinated by the Chief Pharmacist/Superintendent Pharmacist or Responsible Pharmacist.",
  "affected": null,
  "withdrawn": null,
  "medicalSpecialism": ["anaesthetics", "cardiology", "critical-care", "general-practice", "pharmacy", "psychiatry"],
  "attachments": [
    {
      "title": "National Patient Safety Alert: Recall of Quetiapine Oral Suspension (unlicensed medicine), manufactured by Eaststone Limited due to a potential for overdosing, NatPSA/2026/002/MHRA",
      "url": "https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/697b440cf8f4a746d9572efc/__DMRC_-_NatPSA_Final_-_NatPSA-2026-002-MHRA_.pdf",
      "contentType": "application/pdf"
    }
  ],
  "bodyText": "This alert is for action by: primary and secondary care, specifically those involved in pharmacy services...",
  "url": "https://www.gov.uk/drug-device-alerts/national-patient-safety-alert-class-1-medicines-recall-notification-recall-of-quetiapine-oral-suspension-unlicensed-medicine-manufactured-by-eaststone-limited-due-to-a-potential-for-overdosing-natpsa-slash-2026-slash-002-slash-mhr",
  "source": "MHRA / gov.uk",
  "observedAt": "2026-08-14T04:07:30.856Z",
  "error": null
}

The most complete MHRA drug and device safety alert scraper available. It returns every field the MHRA / gov.uk alerts feed exposes for each safety notice and recall, plus a full-detail mode that adds the alert body, the issue, the action required, who is affected, medical specialisms and attachment PDFs, and gives you five filters to target exactly the alerts you need.

📥 Input · 📤 Output · 💰 Pricing · ▶️ Examples

Table of contents

• What it does
• Quickstart
• Input reference
• Output reference
• Example output record
• Run via API and CLI
• Fetch results
• Billing and limits
• FAQ and troubleshooting

What it does

The actor collects UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) drug and device safety alerts and recalls from the gov.uk alerts feed, applies the filters you pass as input, and writes one normalized record per alert to the run's dataset. Dates are normalized, missing source values are returned as null, and the alert type is mapped to both a human label and a stable alertTypeCode.

With withDetails on (the default), the actor fetches each alert's structured content and adds the full bodyText, the issue, the actionRequired, who is affected, medicalSpecialism tags, firstPublished / lastUpdated timestamps, and attachments (FSN PDFs and recall letters). Turn it off to return the fast listing-level fields only.

Data covers MHRA drug and device alerts for the United Kingdom.

Quickstart

Open the actor, paste this into the input, and press Run. It returns up to 5 recent National Patient Safety Alerts with full detail.

{
  "maxAlerts": 5,
  "withDetails": true,
  "alertType": ["national-patient-safety"],
  "searchKeyword": ""
}

Every input field is optional. With an empty input the actor returns the most recent alerts (default maxAlerts is 10) with full detail.

Input reference

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
maxAlerts	integer	no	10	Maximum alert records to collect. Free Apify plans are capped at 10 per run.
searchKeyword	string	no	(empty)	Full-text search across the feed (product, manufacturer, hazard), for example insulin, infusion pump, contamination, Medtronic. Empty pulls the most recent alerts.
alertType	string[]	no	(any)	Restrict to one or more alert types: field-safety-notices, national-patient-safety, device-safety-information, medicines-recall-notification, mhra-safety-round-up. Empty includes all.
dateStart	string	no	(empty)	Keep alerts issued on or after this date (YYYY-MM-DD).
dateEnd	string	no	(empty)	Keep alerts issued on or before this date (YYYY-MM-DD).
productFilter	string	no	(empty)	Keep only alerts whose title or summary contains this text, for example a device model, drug name or manufacturer.
withDetails	boolean	no	true	Fetch each alert's full structured content (body, issue, action required, affected, specialisms, attachments, published/updated dates). Turn off for listing-level fields only. Billed per detailed record.
proxyConfiguration	object	no	(none)	Standard Apify proxy configuration. Not required; the gov.uk source is reachable directly.

Filters combine with logical AND. Leave them empty to pull the most recent alerts.

Output reference

One dataset item per alert. Types: string, string[], object[], or null when the source value is absent. Fields marked (detail) are populated only when withDetails is on.

Field	Type	Description
reference	string	MHRA alert reference, for example NatPSA/2026/002/MHRA.
slug	string	gov.uk URL slug of the alert.
contentId	string	gov.uk content ID (UUID).
title	string	Full alert title.
alertType	string	Human-readable alert type.
alertTypeCode	string	Stable alert type code, for example national-patient-safety.
documentType	string	gov.uk document type, for example medical_safety_alert.
issuedDate	string	Date the alert was issued (YYYY-MM-DD).
firstPublished	string	ISO timestamp first published (detail).
lastUpdated	string	ISO timestamp last updated (detail).
summary	string	Short alert summary.
issue	string	Full description of the safety issue (detail).
actionRequired	string	Action recipients must take (detail).
affected	string	Who is affected, or null (detail).
withdrawn	string	Withdrawal note, or null (detail).
medicalSpecialism	string[]	Relevant medical specialism tags (detail).
attachments	object[]	Attached documents, each with title, url, contentType (detail).
bodyText	string	Full alert body text (detail).
url	string	Canonical gov.uk alert URL.
source	string	Always MHRA / gov.uk.
observedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp of when the record was collected.
error	string	null on success. On a failed run, a single item with a populated error field is written instead.

Example output record

Real record from a live run (input {"maxAlerts": 5, "withDetails": true, "alertType": ["national-patient-safety"]}):

{
  "reference": "NatPSA/2026/002/MHRA",
  "title": "National Patient Safety Alert: Class 1 Medicines Recall Notification: Recall of Quetiapine Oral Suspension (unlicensed medicine), manufactured by Eaststone Limited due to a potential for overdosing, NatPSA/2026/002/MHRA",
  "alertType": "National patient safety alert",
  "alertTypeCode": "national-patient-safety",
  "issuedDate": "2026-01-29",
  "firstPublished": "2026-01-29T12:13:05+00:00",
  "summary": "Eaststone Limited is initiating a recall of all batches of quetiapine oral suspension products due to a potential risk of overdose.",
  "issue": "Eaststone Limited have informed MHRA that the formula they have used to manufacture all batches of quetiapine oral suspension products is incorrect. The active content is twice the amount that it should be which could lead to overdosing.",
  "actionRequired": "The action to recall should be coordinated by the Chief Pharmacist/Superintendent Pharmacist or Responsible Pharmacist.",
  "medicalSpecialism": ["general-practice", "pharmacy", "psychiatry"],
  "attachments": [
    {
      "title": "National Patient Safety Alert: Recall of Quetiapine Oral Suspension, NatPSA/2026/002/MHRA",
      "url": "https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/697b440cf8f4a746d9572efc/__DMRC_-_NatPSA_Final_-_NatPSA-2026-002-MHRA_.pdf",
      "contentType": "application/pdf"
    }
  ],
  "url": "https://www.gov.uk/drug-device-alerts/national-patient-safety-alert-class-1-medicines-recall-notification-recall-of-quetiapine-oral-suspension-unlicensed-medicine-manufactured-by-eaststone-limited-due-to-a-potential-for-overdosing-natpsa-slash-2026-slash-002-slash-mhr",
  "source": "MHRA / gov.uk",
  "observedAt": "2026-08-14T04:07:30.856Z",
  "error": null
}

Run via API and CLI

Start a run and wait for it to finish, then read the dataset. Replace <TOKEN> with your Apify API token.

Run synchronously and get dataset items in one call:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/scrapers_lat~mhra-drug-device-alerts-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"searchKeyword":"insulin","withDetails":true,"maxAlerts":25}'

Start a run asynchronously:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/scrapers_lat~mhra-drug-device-alerts-scraper/runs?token=<TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"alertType":["field-safety-notices"],"dateStart":"2026-01-01","maxAlerts":100}'

Apify CLI:

apify call scrapers_lat/mhra-drug-device-alerts-scraper \
  --input '{"productFilter":"Medtronic","maxAlerts":10}'

Fetch results

Every run writes to a dataset. Fetch items as JSON, CSV, or Excel by changing format:

# JSON
curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/<DATASET_ID>/items?token=<TOKEN>&clean=true&format=json"

# CSV
curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/<DATASET_ID>/items?token=<TOKEN>&clean=true&format=csv"

# Paginate large datasets
curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/<DATASET_ID>/items?token=<TOKEN>&offset=1000&limit=1000"

<DATASET_ID> is returned as defaultDatasetId in the run object. Use offset and limit to page through large result sets. clean=true drops empty and internal fields.

Billing and limits

• Pay per result. You are charged per alert record returned (result event). See the pricing tab for the current per-result price.
• Full-detail event. When withDetails is on, fetching an alert's full content is billed as a separate details event per record. Turn withDetails off to avoid it.
• No charge on failure. If a run errors, the actor writes a single item with a populated error field and does not charge for it. Empty runs cost nothing.
• Spend cap respected. Set maxTotalChargeUsd on the run; once reached, the actor stops emitting and charging further billable results.
• Free Apify plans are capped at 10 records per run. Upgrade for higher maxAlerts.

FAQ and troubleshooting

A run returned 0 records. Why? The filter combination matched nothing. Loosen filters (for example remove alertType or widen the date range). Zero-result runs are not charged.

Why are issue, bodyText and attachments empty? Those are detail-level fields. Set withDetails to true (the default) to populate them.

What is the difference between searchKeyword and productFilter? searchKeyword runs a full-text search on the source feed, while productFilter keeps only alerts whose title or summary contains the text after fetching. Combine both to narrow further.

Why is affected or withdrawn null? The MHRA alert did not include that field. Missing source values are returned as null, never invented.

Is this an official MHRA tool? No. This actor is independent and has no affiliation with the MHRA or gov.uk. It reads only data that is publicly available on gov.uk. Use it in accordance with the gov.uk terms of use.

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• Health Canada Recalls & Safety Alerts Scraper: Canadian consumer product and food recalls.
• EU Safety Gate Recalls Scraper: EU dangerous non-food product alerts.

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Independent tool, not affiliated with the MHRA or gov.uk. Accesses only publicly available MHRA alert data. Use in accordance with the gov.uk terms of use.