The strain exerted on PPE requirements during the Covid19 pandemic was inconceivable. The global view, the demand signals, the recommended planning basis, the unknowns and the evolution of the virus itself – when adding in the following realities the complexity increases exponentially:
- Access to legitimate and correctly compliant inventory: There were rumours of some countries carrying suitcases of cash to secure PPE at source, and even suppliers selling/redirecting already contracted/paid for the product to higher bidders while on runways or boats.
- Logistical congestion and container shortages were real and made global news headlines.
- Lockdown, yes, lockdown was real across the planet and impacted every level of the supply chain – every item of PPE purchased requires significant human involvement.
- Where exactly do you store everything? And once stored, how do you coordinate the systematic FIFO release from that vast network?
- How much do we actually need to order? Who do we actually need to order on behalf of?
- Who actually makes all of the PPE on this planet?
- Who is responsible and who is going to pay?
- How long is this going to last?
- How do we ensure there is no exploitation / forced labour within the Supply Chain?
- Why can we not get everything we require from within our own borders?
Undercurrents of assumption regarding endless availabilities of PPE, whatever PPE we were going to be guided to require, checkmated us to lean on offshored manufacturing, thus creating the strongest “seller’s market” for PPE in history, and likely ever. The UK government were forced to spend in excess of £13billion simply procuring the inventory, chuck in the logistical costs to move/store said inventory and you can easily bolt in another £1billion.
Did we do something wrong?
And if we did, where did we get it wrong? And more importantly, how do we prepare to not find ourselves in the same position again?
Well, hindsight is a beautiful thing, but who could have called in the scale of the impact that COVID had – the world literally held its breath (or maybe had a chance to breathe?), that is until healthcare settings realised the tap was not only not running but getting more into that tap was practically impossible without the serious expense and dreaded airfreighting (the most cost-inefficient method of moving PPE).
In a non-Pandemic state, the Healthcare system within the UK is incredibly fragmented. Acute settings (primarily Hospitals) procured out of frameworks, complex publicly sourced/procured platforms that carry “envelops” and a suite of pre-approved suppliers/manufacturers – the limiting factor to this is you can ONLY procure from these suppliers/manufacturers.
Pivot over to primary and adult social care and the vast majority is privatised which means it’s open season to do whatever they want and buy from whoever they want – think death by a thousand cuts… rather 50,000 cuts… as each setting/venue is an independent customer with its own budget and has zero obligation to establish a framework. Chuck in the prisons, police, MOJ, education, dentists, … and the complexity grows exponentially.
In writing this I was urged to point out the critical elements, or key issues – this is desperate as there are so many chain reactions or butterfly effects that cannot be accounted for unless the whole is considered. But, if I were to lens into some critical information points to achieve a stable and cost-effective supply of PPE in this/any country, then the following is a good starter:
- Clear guidance on what product is required within healthcare settings
- A central repository of inventory that carries sufficient coverage to accommodate the entire Healthcare sector
- Localised manufacturing capabilities and capacities to accommodate the entire Healthcare sector
- The specific “time” of inventory for each of the above items once defined
- Someone to coordinate the procurement activity, ideally with category specific expertise
- Someone to verify/pre-validate credible and compliant product
- Someone to verify/pre-validate credible and compliant suppliers/manufacturers
- Clear replenishment to the exact location of requirement (Remember, there is no Central ERP, there is only fragmentation…)
- An intelligent (functioning) ERP/IT Platform affording PO placement, fulfilment, status
- Finance team to co-ordinate all financial activity
- Operational team to co-ordinate all movement and storage requirements (both supplier and customer interfacing)
- A national forum to hear the voice of the customer (to absorb messaging and flex the network to support/adapt to requirements)
- Time
Pain changes behaviour. The pain experienced during this last 2.5 years has driven changes and learnings across both Government and the broader Healthcare settings that will hopefully last. Category and procurement strategies continue to be developed with all the above in mind, and all threaded to the word “Resilience”. It is however inevitable that the current central function (of Government issued “Free PPE”) will come to an end and the multitude of healthcare sectors will need to recommence independent procuring activities. As with all flights, taking off and landing tend to be the trickiest parts. COVID confirmed that taking off was indeed incredibly tricky and we are now facing both a landing AND taking off zone in the coming months. Unfortunately, only time, or another pandemic, again will tell if the right lessons have been learnt and the right decisions have been made.
