Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 3
3
There is no clear plan for how big the PPE stockpile needs to be and...
Conclusion
There is no clear plan for how big the PPE stockpile needs to be and how the Department will build greater resilience into the NHS supply chain so that it can respond at pace to future urgent needs. Having an appropriate PPE stockpile and a resilient NHS supply chain is crucial to the Department’s successful response to any future pandemic and infectious disease risks. The Department has historically relied on international supply chains and held a stockpile of PPE, medicines and clinical consumables to mitigate the reasonable worst-case scenario risk of an influenza pandemic only. The Department has not yet decided on what level of stockpile it will hold for future pandemics and whether it should buy PPE from British manufacturers to shorten the length of the supply chain and more effectively manage the quality and delivery speed of items. The Department estimates that if it held a stockpile sufficient to deal with a pandemic equivalent to COVID-19 then it believes it would be value for money only if there was a pandemic every 12 years. The Department has important work to do to identify an appropriate level of stockpile; balancing the need to hold sufficient PPE to mitigate the risk of potential supply chain delays and price spikes in the early stages of a pandemic, with the ongoing cost of storing PPE, and the risk of items going out of date without ever being used. Recommendation: The Department should develop a clear plan to increase the resilience of the NHS supply chain to be able to respond at speed if there is another pandemic or variant of concern and needs to explain in detail to the Committee how it intends to work out what items and how much PPE it needs to hold as a national stockpile going forward.
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
3: PAC conclusion: There is no clear plan for how big the PPE stockpile needs to be and how the Department will build greater resilience into the NHS supply chain so that it can respond at pace to future urgent needs. 3: PAC recommendation: The Department should develop a clear plan to increase the resilience of the NHS supply chain to be able to respond at speed if there is another pandemic or variant of concern and needs to explain in detail to the Committee how it intends to work out what items and how much PPE it needs to hold as a national stockpile going forward. 3.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: Spring 2023 3.2 The department is undertaking a fundamental review of the clinical countermeasures, including PPE, that need to be readily accessible in event of a future pandemic or emerging infectious disease. This review factors in lessons learnt from COVID-19 pandemic, the updated analysis of risks undertaken for the next iteration of the National Risk Register and the department’s new approach to pandemic preparedness. 3.3 Informed by expert advice and modelling, the department is working closely with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and NHS Supply Chain on the product mix and amounts of PPE that need to be held to support resilience and response to a future pandemic or emerging infectious disease. The department expects to be able to offer more information on the results of this work to the Committee in early 2023. 3.4 Any potential PPE demand increases that may occur during the rest of this financial year as a result of possible COVID-19 variants of concern have been factored into amounts held in the existing provision to the end of March 2023. The amount of stock that needs to be held for a new pandemic or variant concern beyond this period is being considered as part of the wider work on stockpiling.