Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the size of the stockpiles of amoxicillin that are available for prescription or purchase in the UK as of 15 September 2020.
Our priority is to ensure that patients continue to have access to medicines and medical products they need. We are working closely with industry, the National Health Service and others in the supply chain to ensure that precautions are in place to reduce the likelihood of future shortages
The Government continues to hold stockpiles of medicines, including many of those medicines raised in the Rt. hon. Member’s questions, to cope with a range of scenarios, and robust contingency planning continues to ensure that the country is prepared for a possible second peak of COVID-19 infections and the end of the Transition period.
The Essential Medicines Buffer Stock (EMBS) supports the NHS in the event of a pandemic or other health emergency by ensuring the continued availability of medicines that are in routine use within the NHS in the event that the supply chain is interrupted. Volumes of the medicines listed in the EBMS for the requested dates are shown in the following table. The original EMBS contracts ended in October 2019 and the current ones expire on 31 March 2021.
Volumes in EMBS (packs/singles) | Prior to 31 October 2019 | On 15 September 2020 |
paracetamol_500mg_Caps/Tabs 100 pack | 706,072 | 2,965,503 |
paracetamol_500mg_Caps/Tabs 100 pack | 4,942,506 |
|
paracetamol_500mg-Caps/Tabs 100 pack | 706,072 |
|
paracetamol_125mg suppository 10 pack | 3,578 |
|
paracetamol_120mg/5ml liquid 100ml single | 340,062 |
|
paracetamol_250mg/5ml_liquid 100ml single | 201,159 |
|
paracetamol_500mg_Caps/Tabs 100 pack | 706,072 |
|
salbutamol_2mg/ml 2.5ml_nebules 20 pack | 246,246 |
|
Salbutamol_100mcg x 200 dose_MDI single inhalers | 3,956,254 | 2,600,000 |
ibuprofen_100mg/5ml_liquid 100ml-150ml-500ml (volume in 100ml) singles | 230,400 |
|
ibuprofren_400mg_Caps/Tabs 84 pack | 591,883 |
|
amoxicillin_125mg/5ml_liquid 100ml singles | 234,925 |
|
amoxicillin_125mg/5ml_liquid 100ml singles | 234,925 |
|
amoxicillin_250mg_Caps/Tabs 21 pack | 235,874 |
|
amoxicillin_500mg_Caps/Tabs 21 pack | 1,714,429 |
|
amoxicillin_125mg/5ml_liquid 100ml singles | 313,234 |
|
Amoxicillin_250mg_Caps/Tabs 21 pack | 157,249 |
|
Amoxicillin_500mg_Caps/Tabs 21 pack | 489,837 |
|
In preparation for a potential imminent second wave of COVID-19 and to protect the security of the supply of critical life-saving medicines and patient health across the United Kingdom, a clinically-led assessment of medicines that should be stockpiled was undertaken in May and June 2020 and this was fed into a tender exercise that ran from 24 July to 10 August 2020.
Paracetamol and insulin are amongst the medicines that were identified and tendered for as part of this exercise and we will shortly be awarding contracts to secure supplies of these medicines for the autumn and winter. Details of the tender exercise can be found at the following links:
https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:355937-2020:HTML:EN:HTML&tabId=1&tabLang=en#id4-VI
https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/b8bf439c-76d1-4fa6-952d-6b65bd659021
With regard to stocks of medicines on UK soil owned and held by suppliers themselves, commercially sensitive information has been shared confidentially with the Department by suppliers of medicines to the UK, to support various contingency programmes. For this reason, we cannot share information received from suppliers, including on their UK stock levels, with third parties.