Wholesalers: Supply chain back to normal after storms
The medicines supply chain has now “recovered” from disruptions caused by the series of storms that have torn through the UK over the past week, executive director of the Healthcare Distribution Association (HDA) Martin Sawer has told C+D.
This is due to the supply chain’s “inbuilt resilience”, Mr Sawer told C+D in an exclusive interview yesterday (February 22).
“Areas in the country where the storm hit hardest” experienced “inevitable disruption”, Mr Sawer explained. “Flooding and the winds made the [delivery] conditions tricky”, he said.
“Distribution difficulties” arose last Friday (February 18) and continued into the start of this week, he added.
Read more: Storm Eunice: Pharmacies damaged and delivery vans crushed by falling trees
C+D reported earlier this week that wholesalers such as Alliance Healthcare and AAH experienced some delays in their delivery networks due to Storm Eunice.
Wholesalers therefore instituted “contingency plans”, Mr Sawer said.
On “some occasions”, they completed only one out of their two scheduled deliveries to pharmacies over Friday and Monday (February 21), Mr Sawer said, and “some deliveries will have been done from other warehouses that were available”.
Wholesalers also completed “extra deliveries” at the start of this week and brought “extra amounts of medicines” in their vans to “catch up”, he told C+D.
Supply chain remains “resilient”
As of yesterday, “things have gotten much more back to normal, and the system is pretty well recovered”, Mr Sawer said.
The medicines supply chain rebounded so quickly from the UK's quick succession of storms due to its “inbuilt resilience”, he added.
The fact that pharmacies rely on multiple wholesalers and “have more than one wholesaler to choose from for most products” also guarantees the supply chain’s flexibility, Mr Sawer explained.
