Description
Background
Personal protective equipment and hygiene consumables (PPE) is a critical component of the health and social care system’s ability to respond effectively to pandemics and other public health emergencies.
During the COVID 19 pandemic, unprecedented global demand for PPE placed significant pressure on international supply chains, highlighted vulnerabilities in availability and production capacity, and emphasised the importance of resilience, flexibility and rapid scale up capability.
To support HMG’s Pandemic Preparedness Strategy, and incorporate lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) is conducting this market engagement to better understand the capacity for domestic and international PPE manufacturing, and impacts on this production in a future pandemic.
Engagement Objective
Through this market engagement, DHSC wants to build a clearer picture of:
• Your current PPE manufacturing capability and capacity (products, volumes, lead times, and constraints).
• If you are not a PPE supplier today, whether (and how) your organisation could pivot to PPE manufacture (capability, requirements, and timescales).
• How capacity could change during a pandemic surge, including key challenges, dependencies, and opportunities to increase output.
• Were you an organisation that attempted to pivot or previously supplied PPE that no longer currently does.
All respondents will be asked to complete a questionnaire covering these topics. This can be found in the following link: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=MIwnYaiRMUyMH-9N6Jc6HAKxbC1k63lNsNWq5Fxa0I5UMVVHQ1BCRlJDWUJXQ1cwN0NIN0w4VVhGRy4u
DHSC may contact respondents to clarify information in their response. This may take the form of a follow-up one-to-one meeting during or after the engagement, or a small roundtable discussion.
This notice relates to a market engagement exercise for information gathering purposes only. It is not a call for competition and does not constitute the start of a procurement process. The information gathered may be used to inform future policy development and, where appropriate, the design of any potential future procurement activity.
The deadline for responses is 30/06/2026 at 23:59. If you have any questions, please contact PandemicPrepPPE@dhsc.gov.uk.
Additional information
This engagement is focused on organisations with the capability to scale or pivot PPE production rapidly in response to a pandemic scenario, using established or near operational manufacturing processes. Innovation focused activity, including the development of novel technologies or concepts at lower technology readiness levels (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/defence-and-security-accelerator-terms-and-conditions-and-contract-guidance#what-dasa-funds), is better supported through alternative mechanisms such as the Biosecurity Frontiers competition (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/biosecurity-frontiers/biosecurity-frontiers-competition-document), which is designed to fund and test emerging solutions for future biosecurity challenges.