Official UK procurement notice
PPE Manufacturing And Pandemic Preparedness
Authority: Department of Health & Social Care (Central government)
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionBackground
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: forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx ↗
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 (www.gov.uk/guidance/defence-and… ↗), is better supported through alternative mechanisms such as the Biosecurity Frontiers competition (www.gov.uk/government/publicati… ↗), which is designed to fund and test emerging solutions for future biosecurity challenges.
CPV: Garments for biological or chemical protection · Leather and textile fabrics, plastic and rubber materials · Medical clothing · Medical consumables · Medical equipments · Medical equipments, pharmaceuticals and personal care products · Protective and safety clothing · Protective gear · Protective goggles · Safety equipment · Safety visors · Special workwear · +1 more
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedPipeline intelligence · planning stage: how this market runs before the tender is published
How Department of Health & Social Care buys Medical consumables (CPV 3314), and who usually turns up
Department of Health & Social Care’s published record next to the market for the same work. Frameworks and DPS are left out: they draw different bid counts. Whole-market view: Medical consumables (CPV 3314) →
How the contest usually goes
Winner shares use published awards; bid and price charts use contested lots.
i
How often small and medium firms win.
Share of awards where the winner’s size is known.
The counts under this question show how many awards have a known supplier size.
No small-firm winners recorded among this authority’s published awards in this sample.
i
How often local firms win similar work.
Winners with a registered address in the delivery region, out of awards with a known address.
Local means the winner is registered in the region where that award was delivered. The market figure counts awards delivered in Greater London (authority’s region).
A local branch does not count if the registered address is elsewhere.
Most of this buyer’s recorded winners were registered in the region where that award was delivered.
i
How long buyers here take to decide after bids close.
Middle value in days from the bid deadline to the award date, on competitions that published both.
Only decided tenders count, so slow ones still waiting are not in.
Half of these awards have an award date within 73 days of the bid deadline.
i
How often work is awarded with no recorded rival.
Direct awards and tenders where every published lot count shows one bid.
Both shares are minimums: some awards have no bid count.
Thin markets produce this too; it is not proof of a tailored specification.
Direct awards or one recorded bid are common here. Check the route before spending time on a bid.
How many bids did past lots attract?
i
How many bids past lots received.
Each colour is a bid-count range. Only competed lots with a published count are included.
Past bids do not predict this tender.
1 bid30% / 13%
2–328% / 17%
4–626% / 23%
7+16% / 48%
How did awards compare with estimates?
i
Where winning prices landed against estimates.
Each colour shows awards below, close to or above the published estimate, one lot at a time.
Past prices are a guide, not a bid price.
Below estimate50% / 53%
Within ±2%50% / 26%
Above estimate0% / 21%
Assess each lot i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
Open a lot for its forecast, this buyer’s previous supplier and possible competitors, from published award history, not a bid list
Lot #1CPV 3511Estimate not published
This lot is listed as CPV 3511. The table above uses the notice category.
i
How many bids this lot may attract.
The forecast uses similar past competitions. The bar shows either that forecast or past bid counts; the line below says which.
Each lot shows its own forecast based on its own category; forecasts for different lots of the same notice are not comparative. The bar shows 25 past lots.
A forecast, not a list of bidders.
1 bid24%
2–336%
4–624%
7+16%
i
Where the award price may land.
The forecast uses similar awards and the buyer’s estimate. The band covers the middle half of likely prices.
No comparable awards for this lot yet.
A statistical guide from past awards, not a price to bid.
Who has supplied this buyer on similar work? i
Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
i
Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
No earlier contract of this buyer matches this lot on the published record.
Who could compete for this lot? i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
Candidate suppliers for this notice have not been worked out yet, so this is not a verdict that nobody fits.
About this data
- Source. Official UK public procurement notices (Find a Tender), reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. New notices arrive through the day; the figures are rebuilt nightly.
- Two views, kept apart. The authority’s own track record and the wider market for the same kind of work sit side by side and are never mixed. Where the local picture is too thin, a figure widens to a broader market and says which one it used.
- Forecasts are labelled. The price forecast and its range, possible competitors and the earlier-work matches are our estimates from past awards: not published facts, not win chances and not price advice. Official notices do not say who is bidding.
- Every figure shows what it rests on. Not every notice publishes a bid count, a value or a delivery region, so each figure carries the number of records behind it, and one built on few records is marked as such. The on a figure explains it; the counting rules are in the methodology. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.
Procedure terms & legal framework
From the official record- Legal basis
- UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
- Procurement category
- Goods
- Notice status
- Planned procurement
- Procurement threshold
- Unspecified in notice
- Regulatory regime
- Standard
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Competitive procedure
- GPA / WTO covered
- Unspecified in notice
- Recurring procurement
- Unspecified in notice
- First published
- 1 Jun 2026, 11:09 BST
- Last source update
- 1 Jun 2026, 11:09 BST
- FTS notice number
2026/S 000-051268- Latest notice
- Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
- Classification (CPV)
- Delivery area
- Not published
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-06aa05Find a Tender
How it was run
Official notice- Submission deadline
- —
Timeline
1 Jun 2026 → 30 Jun 2026 · 3 dates- Planning notice published148 days ago1 Jun 2026, 11:09 BST
- Contract starts119 days ago30 Jun 2026, 00:00 BST
- Market engagement118 days ago30 Jun 2026, 23:59 BST
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: forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx ↗
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 (www.gov.uk/guidance/defence-and… ↗), is better supported through alternative mechanisms such as the Biosecurity Frontiers competition (www.gov.uk/government/publicati… ↗), which is designed to fund and test emerging solutions for future biosecurity challenges.
Notice history
1 event · 1 release on Find a Tender- Preliminary market engagement notice published1 Jun 2026, 11:09 BSTUK2
Commercial outcome & contract awards
Pipeline notice- Awards (0)
- No award published
- Contracts (0)
- No contract published
- Bid statistics
- No aggregate bid statistics published
Contracting authority & participating public bodies
Official documents & specifications (1)
Official links; attachments are not copiedNotices published for this procedure
- Preliminary market engagement notice Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender