Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to Answer of 21 April 2020 to Question 34931 on Medical equipment: business, whether (a) his Department and (b) NHS England approached businesses to produce additional ventilators for the NHS between 1 December 2019 and 13 March 2020.

At the start of the COVID-19 outbreak in March there were more than 8,000 mechanical ventilators in hospitals across the United Kingdom. These were mainly procured by National Health Service trusts through NHS Supply Chain which manages a framework contract with a number of manufacturers for the supply of mechanical ventilators into the NHS.

In March the decision was taken to move to a centralised model of procurement for the whole of the UK. All suppliers of non-invasive and invasive (mechanical) ventilators on the NHS Supply Chain framework were approached between 3 and 10 March, with a view to purchase any available ventilators. So far over 1,000 mechanical ventilators have been procured and made available to the NHS in the UK through this route, with thousands more on order and due to arrive in coming weeks.

These are in addition to ventilators made available from the private sector and those manufactured under the PM’s Ventilator Challenge programme. Including these, the NHS in the UK now has around 10,900 mechanical ventilators available for it to use in total.