Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 16
16
Accepted
Front-line medical personnel experience poor availability and inadequate shelf life of inventory.
Conclusion
Despite the broader success of the LCST contract, since it began the needs of front- line medical personnel have not been well served. In particular, units have faced poor availability of medical inventory and been supplied with items without sufficient shelf life for longer deployments. This has meant that, in some instances, units have carried increased operational risk because they have had to proceed without the capability to test for and treat certain medical conditions. In 2022, the Royal Navy assessed that, if unresolved, the situation presented a significant risk to life for its personnel.37
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the committee's observations, providing a January 2025 target. It details significant transformational changes to the LCST contract, including a £13.2 million uplift, improved medical availability (92% since Sep 2023), and process improvements for shelf-life, committing to strategic engagement with DHSC for medical stockpiles.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
5.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: January 2025 5.2 There has been notable transformational change injected into the LCST contract over recent years including a £13.2 million uplift in staff employed inside the Delivery Partner (Team Leidos) together with additional staff established into key areas of UK Strategic Command. 5.3 The primary aim has been to segment medical activity from the broader scope of LCST and strengthen customer-supplier integration across the range of forecast, planning and operational activity. This additional investment has been coupled with analysis and planning that has led to improved requirement definition of medical equipment, alternate routes to market and key changes to the end-to-end supply chain policy & process. This has resulted in a sustained period of above contractual target (92%) Medical availability performance since September 2023. Process improvements are in place to ensure that short shelf-life medical materiel can meet the challenge presented by long duration maritime deployments. Similar process improvement, ensuring speed of procurement, has already been made to aero-medical equipment. Next steps include strategic engagement with the Department of Health and Social Care to elicit access to medical stockpiles and the introduction of smarter ways in which contingent medical operational stock might be maintained at readiness to support Defence activities. The Future Defence Support Services programme (which replaces LCST in 2028) is already well advanced in understanding the specific needs of Defence Medical, and particularly medical devices. Equipped with greater contractual leverage and alongside a Defence customer who has learned, it will substantially redress the challenges encountered by LCST. 5.4 The Permanent Secretary has written separately on this issue as part of follow up to queries raised in the Committee hearing.