News
HDA Statement regarding the availability of Public Health England-supplied PPE for community pharmacy
COVID-19 Update – 29 April 2020
HDA Statement regarding the availability of Public Health England-supplied PPE for community pharmacy
The Healthcare Distribution Association would like the community pharmacy sector to be aware that the stocks of Public Health England (PHE) PPE masks recently supplied by the Association’s member wholesalers to pharmacies, for staff use only, have now almost completely run out. HDA member companies are awaiting a new sale event to be announced by Public Health England.
In the meantime, the Department of Health & Social Care has told HDA:
“We have extended our PPE supply route to Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) to help distribute stock to organisations outside of the NHS supply chain who have the highest need clinically and other services that would have a high priority need for PPE including Pharmacists.
Over 7 million more items of PPE have been delivered over the last week to the LRFs identified as being in the highest need of resupply. We will continue to make drops of PPE for distribution by the LRFs to meet some priority need until the new e-commerce solution is operational.
We will continue to make releases to wholesalers when stocks permit.
If providers are unable to access PPE through these routes and have an urgent need, they should contact the National Supply Disruption Response (NSDR) helpline to request emergency support. The 24/7 freephone number is 0800 915 9964.”
This statement about PHE-supplied PPE masks excludes the fact that individual HDA wholesalers may be able to obtain some supplies of appropriately certified PPE masks from their own sources.
