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 (a) amount and (b) value of outstanding Government personal protective equipment procurement contracts.

There are a number of channels by which personal protective equipment (PPE) is sourced by National Health Service providers. This includes sourcing it independently as well as provision through a central procurement model for a number of years. During the period covered by this question, the NHS Supply Chain created in 2006 underwent a restructuring in April 2018 with the creation of Supply Chain Coordination.

Furthermore in March 2020 a new dedicated unit was set up to focus on securing supplies of PPE. This unit identified PPE suppliers from across the globe to meet the increasing demand for a growing list of PPE products. We have now contracted with over 150 suppliers able to deliver at the scale and pace the United Kingdom requires.

The multiple channels, changes to structures, administrative practices and routes to source PPE mean that meaningful comparable figures for the years specified are not available.