Recommendation 7

Alongside reducing excess stock, the Department is also having to consider what is an appropriate level of PPE to hold as a stockpile. We asked it whether it had created another strategic reserve of PPE in preparation for the possibility of a future pandemic.11 The Department noted that it had a large “surplus”, but the size of the future stockpile it might hold had yet to be determined. Two factors were noted as having a large effect on this decision; the cost of storage and the potential for items in the stockpile to go out of date.12 The Department has seen how expensive storage costs can be over the last two years, spending £737 million on storage by the end of November 2021.13 It told us, however that it is now confident that it has reduced the monthly storage costs it is paying for PPE.14 However, it is still paying around £7 million a month in storage costs just on items it currently deems to be excess.15 The absence of a full integrated stock management system