NHS may run out of vaccines, Parliamentary committee warns
Reliance on a small number of suppliers means that the NHS risks running out of many essential vaccines.
A House of Commons Public Accounts Committee report
on vaccines procurement says that the Department of Health relies on just 10 suppliers for 16
essential vaccines. Only five of those vaccines are available from more
than one supplier; two of them are available from three suppliers and
three from only two suppliers.
“Limited competition, and near monopolistic conditions for supply
of some vaccines, have made it more difficult to secure competitive prices
and
value for money,” the report says. “Furthermore, reliance
on a single supplier has made the Department more vulnerable to interruptions
in supply.”
The committee recognises that in most cases suppliers have delivered
vaccines as required. But it notes that shortages of the measles, mumps
and rubella vaccine (MMR) have occurred and that supplies of the anti-tuberculosis
BCG vaccine once ran so short that the national vaccination programme
was suspended for two years. Furthermore, it records that although the
DoH monitors the supply and demand situation on a monthly basis, long
lead times and increasing centralisation mean that international shortages
could develop rapidly and that the DoH cannot guarantee that future shortages
will not occur. |
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Pharmaceutical Journal
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