Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress they have made to secure personal protective equipment for health professionals from small and medium-sized businesses based in the United Kingdom.

As part of the national effort to focus the United Kingdom’s manufacturing industry on this immediate challenge, the Government has issued a ‘call to arms’ for industry partners and other manufacturers to make essential personal protective equipment (PPE) that demonstrably meets required specifications for use by the National Health Service and care sector.

Each offer from industry is being followed up with checks on the organisation making the offer and technical checks on the safety and effectiveness of the products on offer before they are purchased for use within the NHS and care sector. The large number of offers means that it has been taking some time to respond. This is because we have a rigorous process in place and are checking at every step to ensure that the offers meet our safety requirements.

Lord Deighton will lead the national effort to boost UK PPE production and also support the scaling up of engineering efforts for small companies capable of contributing to supplies.