Ibuprofen

(asked on 15th September 2020) - View Source

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 size of the stockpiles of ibuprofen that are available for prescription or purchase in the UK as of 15 September 2020.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 23rd September 2020

Our priority is to ensure that patients continue to have access to medicines and medical products they need. We are working closely with industry, the National Health Service and others in the supply chain to ensure that precautions are in place to reduce the likelihood of future shortages

The Government continues to hold stockpiles of medicines, including many of those medicines raised in the Rt. hon. Member’s questions, to cope with a range of scenarios, and robust contingency planning continues to ensure that the country is prepared for a possible second peak of COVID-19 infections and the end of the Transition period.

The Essential Medicines Buffer Stock (EMBS) supports the NHS in the event of a pandemic or other health emergency by ensuring the continued availability of medicines that are in routine use within the NHS in the event that the supply chain is interrupted. Volumes of the medicines listed in the EBMS for the requested dates are shown in the following table. The original EMBS contracts ended in October 2019 and the current ones expire on 31 March 2021.

Volumes in EMBS (packs/singles)

Prior to 31 October 2019

On 15 September 2020

paracetamol_500mg_Caps/Tabs 100 pack

706,072

2,965,503

paracetamol_500mg_Caps/Tabs 100 pack

4,942,506

paracetamol_500mg-Caps/Tabs 100 pack

706,072

paracetamol_125mg suppository 10 pack

3,578

paracetamol_120mg/5ml liquid 100ml single

340,062

paracetamol_250mg/5ml_liquid 100ml single

201,159

paracetamol_500mg_Caps/Tabs 100 pack

706,072

salbutamol_2mg/ml 2.5ml_nebules 20 pack

246,246

Salbutamol_100mcg x 200 dose_MDI single inhalers

3,956,254

2,600,000

ibuprofen_100mg/5ml_liquid 100ml-150ml-500ml (volume in 100ml) singles

230,400

ibuprofren_400mg_Caps/Tabs 84 pack

591,883

amoxicillin_125mg/5ml_liquid 100ml singles

234,925

amoxicillin_125mg/5ml_liquid 100ml singles

234,925

amoxicillin_250mg_Caps/Tabs 21 pack

235,874

amoxicillin_500mg_Caps/Tabs 21 pack

1,714,429

amoxicillin_125mg/5ml_liquid 100ml singles

313,234

Amoxicillin_250mg_Caps/Tabs 21 pack

157,249

Amoxicillin_500mg_Caps/Tabs 21 pack

489,837

In preparation for a potential imminent second wave of COVID-19 and to protect the security of the supply of critical life-saving medicines and patient health across the United Kingdom, a clinically-led assessment of medicines that should be stockpiled was undertaken in May and June 2020 and this was fed into a tender exercise that ran from 24 July to 10 August 2020.

Paracetamol and insulin are amongst the medicines that were identified and tendered for as part of this exercise and we will shortly be awarding contracts to secure supplies of these medicines for the autumn and winter. Details of the tender exercise can be found at the following links:

https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:355937-2020:HTML:EN:HTML&tabId=1&tabLang=en#id4-VI

https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/b8bf439c-76d1-4fa6-952d-6b65bd659021

With regard to stocks of medicines on UK soil owned and held by suppliers themselves, commercially sensitive information has been shared confidentially with the Department by suppliers of medicines to the UK, to support various contingency programmes. For this reason, we cannot share information received from suppliers, including on their UK stock levels, with third parties.

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