Recommendation 20

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic there were not many businesses in the UK that specialised in producing PPE with most of it coming from overseas. The pandemic saw steep rises in global prices for PPE as demand for it surged throughout the world. As part of its initial pandemic response, the Department decided to try and encourage UK manufacturers to start producing PPE in order to increase the short-term supply and to help improve the UK’s long term resilience and ability to respond in the event of future pandemics.63 This “UK Make” strategy resulted in the Department signing 37 contracts with UK manufacturers worth £1.1 billion for 3.9 billion PPE items.64 The Department was complementary about the role of these UK suppliers saying that those 37 contracts were very successful and that some of these suppliers were “really creative at an early stage”.65