Background to Alert CMU request for Stockholding Report
Please note NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency (NHS PASA) is now known as
Commercial Medicines Unit (CMU), Department of Health (January 2010)
There have been two communications to the NHS regarding this exercise to date,
initially from Howard Stokoe in August 2009 and from Andrew Alldred, Chairman
NPSG and Howard Stokoe in July 2012, which are provided below as background.
Pharmacy Department
Fewston Wing
Harrogate District Hospital
Lancaster Park Road
Harrogate
HG2 7SX
Telephone (01423) 553083
17 July 2012
Distribution: NPSG Trust Chief Pharmacists England (to share within local networks)
CMU category specialists for onward cascade to CMU pharmacy purchasing contacts
CMU Pharmex and other trust contacts
Dear Colleague
For information purposes only: no action required
National harvesting of local pharmacy held stock information in case of need:
CMU system test – Stockholding Report
As you will be aware, in preparing for potential pandemic flu and supported by NPSG
discussion, to enable the NHS (secondary care England) to understand how much
stock of particular medicines it is holding locally within its pharmacy departments, as
quickly as possible and with minimum effort, CMU has sought to develop a system to
harvest this information, electronically, should the need arise and this collection
was requested by either the NHS itself or by central planners and coordinators.
Should this need arise it will allow CMU to piece together a complete picture of
stock held in the supply chain (that is by the NHS, its distributors, manufacturers and
suppliers and noting that this will not capture stock held at ward level) at short notice
to support supply forecasting and planning.
Having built the system and confirmed local contacts, CMU would like to test the
system for all JAC and Ascribe sites. The test will be undertaken on the 23 July
2012. Separately CMU will contact trust confirmed contacts and provide the requests
to undertake the tests – full directions of how to identify, run and submit the report
will be provided separately.
The collected information will be used for no other purpose than to test NHS and
system functionality.
A full report of the exercise will be provided to NPSG.
If you have any questions about the test or the associated objectives please do not
hesitate to contact Howard Stokoe.
Yours sincerely
Andrew Alldred
Chairman NPSG
and
Howard Stokoe
Principal Pharmacist
Commercial Medicines Unit
Howard.stokoe@cmu.nhs.uk
Please see the following message from Howard Stokoe, Principal Pharmacist, NHS
Purchasing and Supply Agency
Sent: 25 August 2009
Distribution: NHS Trust Chief Pharmacists in England
Pharmaceutical Market Support Group (PMSG)
National Pharmaceutical Supply Group (NPSG)
- Scotland
– N.Ireland
This is now known as
- Wales
Dear Colleague,
Alert-CMU Request for Stockholding.
Swine Flu: planning for an ITU surge:
NHS PASA support for PMSG
This will appear on all documentation and
web pages relating to this exercise.
NHS PASA is working with PMSG to assess the central support that its members may
require to deliver the roles set out in the recent letter from Dr Keith Ridge. It is also working
with the DH to monitor the quantity of stock of particular lines held within the medicine supply
chain.
In the light of these requirements NHS PASA has examined the opportunity to harvest
information from NHS trusts in England that use either the JAC or ASCribe systems. These
systems represent around 85% of NHS capacity in England.
The aim is that, if requested by either PMSG members, or by the DH, NHS PASA would
harvest local pharmacy held stock level information in the same way that it collects Pharmex
data.
The supply of this information would remain under the control of each Chief Pharmacist.
The system providers have told NHS PASA that file generation time is likely to take less than
10 minutes.
Our thinking is that if this information is required, at times when there could also be an
impact on local staffing levels, it will negate any requirement to collect information through
manual intervention.
If the approach delivers its objective PMSG members will be able to use the information to
support their local groups match demand to supply side capacity, on a prioritised basis.
The DH has confirmed funding to take this forward.
The purpose of this letter is to:


explain what is being planned
request your support in any communications that you may have with the system
suppliers
Yours sincerely
Howard Stokoe
Principal Pharmacist
NHS PASA
We intend to extend this exercise to all
Pharmacy System providers:Ascribe, Bedford, Cerner, HP(EDS), iPharmacy,
JAC.