Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the (a) number and (b) cost of refrigerators bought for the preservation of medicines as part of contingency planning in the event the UK leaves the EU without a deal.
As part of the Department’s ‘no deal’ European Union exit contingency planning a tender process to procure additional warehouse space for stockpiled medicines, including ambient, refrigerated and controlled drug storage, was undertaken in October 2018. Contract agreements for storage, including refrigerated storage for around 5,000 pallets of medicines, have recently been signed. The refrigerated storage will cost circa £1 million.