Published: 11/11/21

I write to advise you that National Procurement are currently preparing plans to cover ordering and delivery of PPE orders for Primary Care contractors over the Christmas/New Year. This will impact some deliveries but depend on where you are in your 4 wk ordering cycle.

We recognise that practices may also have their own plans to close their premises therefore may be unable to accept deliveries.

To ensure there is no disruption to supporting NHS services during this period, I would be grateful if you can note and plan accordingly based on the information below. 

I would also remind you to ensure that you have placed your order requirements well in advance of to your assigned deadline date, especially dental orders that require local board approval (who potentially may issue comms instructing earlier approval dates due to approvers being on annual leave etc).

Action required are split by cycles, please review the relevant section relating to your practice.

Cycle 1 & 4 – Due to public holidays your delivery due w/c 27/12/2021 and 03/01/2022 may be delayed by up to 1 week. Therefore, we would suggest that in your November order please consider increasing your order to accommodate this delay. Although we also realise that that your PPE requirements may also reduce due to your practice also being closed due to public holidays or longer periods, and this should also be taken into account when ordering your PPE.

Deliveries will not be made on weekends, nor Public Holidays 27th, 28th Dec and 3rd, 4th Jan.  Again recognising that your PPE requirements will also reduce due to closure, we would only expect your Nov order to be circa 1.5x your regular demand, and this should see you though to your next delivery cycle in January as noted below.

We would remind you that if you are closed you still need to place orders before your January deadline to get your next delivery.