Secretary of State Issues Letter to Suppliers
Dear Member
RE: Letter from Secretary of State to Suppliers of Medical Devices and Clinical Consumables
You should, this week, have received a letter from the DHSC outlining further details of contingency planning in the event of a no deal Brexit and your role in that. We are advised by the Department that in response to the request for details of your own contingencies, you should only provide whatever detail you are comfortable with. A statement outlining planning at an organisational level is likely to suffice. You will be aware that meetings to discuss more detailed plans with individual companies are ongoing.
In response to your concerns about the large number of requests coming from NHS organisations, often requiring a very significant level of detail, we worked with NHS Providers to provide a degree of assurance to NHS Boards.
We were also pleased to see that, following discussions with them, advice from DHSC to NHS Trusts effectively removed most of our members from the scope of recommended self-assessment exercises. This should help ease the burden on you to be involved in multiple conversations. Officials will present an update at our UK Market Conference on 6th November.
A number of you have pointed out that the spirit of collaboration, implicit in the Secretary of State’s letter, is inconsistent with other behaviours you are witnessing, notably the way the new NHS supply chain operating model is being forced through despite the uncertainty surrounding Brexit. I can assure you that this is an issue we are raising robustly with Ministers. In the meantime, if you are unhappy with any of your interactions during the planning process, or are receiving requests you feel are unreasonable, please inform us and we will continue to address on your behalf.
With best regards,
Philip Kennedy