UK Government to spend £11m preventing medicine shortages in preparation for no-deal Brexit

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) will spend around £11m on warehouse contracts to store medicines as a contingency measure for a no-deal Brexit, Hospital Healthcare Europe understands. In October last year, health and social care secretary Matt Hancock told the Health and Social Care Committee that the Government had issued an invitation to tender for additional storage space to stockpile medicines. The measure was implemented to ensure access to medicines in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The DHSC told our sister publication Healthcare Leader that it "expects to spend around £11m on warehouse contracts to store medicines in preparation for a no-deal Brexit". In October, Mr Hancock said he was expecting the value of the contracts to be "in the low tens of millions of pounds".