Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to provide (a) PPE and (b) home testing kits for pharmacy staff.

There are around 11,500 community pharmacies in England, and deliveries of personal protective equipment (PPE) packs were made in March. Further, supplies of PPE have been distributed to wholesalers and distributor networks supplying community pharmacies.

Where there remains an urgent need for additional PPE stock, community pharmacies should contact their Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) who can provide supplies to respond to local spikes in need. For those who are critically short of PPE, they should phone the National Supply Distribution Response for an urgent delivery. We will continue to work in ensuring that community pharmacies have access to PPE.

Symptomatic pharmacy staff, or symptomatic member(s) of their household, are eligible for testing through the self-referral online portal where they are able to order home delivery testing kits. The online portal and further information on those eligible for testing is available at the following links:

https://www.gov.uk/apply-coronavirus-test

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-getting-tested