Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the statement by the Medical and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency on the 28 April 2020 that the UK has fulfilled the clinical need for ventilators through a combination of existing CE marked ventilators and existing applications to the Ventilator challenge, how many ventilators were required to meet that clinical need; and how many of those ventilators were (a) existing CE marker ventilators and (b) secured through the Ventilator Challenge.

As of 18 June, there were 20,356 mechanical ventilators available to patients across the United Kingdom. This compares to around 9,000 at the start of the pandemic in March. Of the additional stock, 7,778 have been bought from new suppliers via the Prime Minister’s ventilator challenge, 2,283 were bought from established suppliers and 1,156 comprises stock in the private sector which is available in future should it be needed.