Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to permit NHS Trusts in England and other health bodies to procure their own personal protective equipment products direct from UK manufacturers; and if he will make a statement.

The United Kingdom manufacturing response to the crisis has been a significant achievement with, on average, UK-based supply anticipated to meet 70% of forecasted demand in England in December for all categories of personal protective equipment (PPE) excluding gloves. We are considering the best way to incentivise and sustain this high level of UK PPE manufacture.

PPE will continue to be procured nationally, funded and overseen by the Department, until March 2021 at the earliest. National Health Service organisations should continue to utilise national reserves. The Department’s national reserves are being expanded to cover months of supply in preparation for the winter period, including building supply from UK manufacturing sites. The Department does not expect additional local procurement or locally co-ordinated manufacture of equipment to be necessary to meet demand for PPE items and therefore no funding is available outside of system funding envelopes.