Audit body warns of risks to medicine supplies in no-deal Brexit, despite preparations

Pharmaphorum | September 27, 2019

Amid the political chaos and bitter recriminations in Westminster in the build-up to Brexit, there is still a risk of delays to health and social care supplies if the UK leaves the EU without a deal, the UK’s National Audit Office (NAO) has warned. An independent Parliamentary body, the NAO audits central government departments, government agencies, and non-departmental public bodies as well as assessing value for money audits of public policy. In a report published today the NAO reviewed the Department for Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) preparations to ensure a steady flow of supplies for the sector when it leaves the EU, and acknowledged the considerable efforts made so far to mitigate the impact of a no-deal Brexit. Although the NAO said there are huge uncertainties about the impact of a no-deal Brexit, it noted the government’s “reasonable worst case” assumption that flow of goods across the Channel could be reduced to 40-60% of current levels at day one. According to the NAO, suppliers said that they had only found shipping arrangements away from the short channel crossings for 25% of medicine product lines, as of 20th September. According to the NAO, suppliers have at least six weeks’ stock for 72% of product lines, and 91% of additional freight capacity procured by the government so far is for priority supplies to the health and social care sector.

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Connectivity in general is becoming an ever more important consideration for production facilities as we endeavour to produce more with less and all the while trying to satisfy an increasing need for more information and communication to and from the production equipment itself.

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