Department of Health Extends Exclusive Contract for Childhood Vaccines with Movianto UK

BEDFORD, UK, October 26, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

The Department of Health has renewed its long-term contract for childhood vaccines with Movianto UK after a full tender process. Movianto, the healthcare logistics specialists, will continue to exclusively store and distribute childhood vaccines.

Responsible for the management of the Childhood Vaccines programme across the UK, the Department of Health stipulated that an essential part of this service was the operation of a fully validated cold chain supply chain. This operation is to deliver to practices, hospitals and hubs across the United Kingdom.

The challenges within the supply chain are significant. Firstly, vaccines must be maintained within a temperature range of +2 to +8C and deviations outside this can have a serious impact on public health. Secondly, the wide and geographically diverse "customer" base needs to be taken into consideration as far as the complex logistics are concerned. Vaccine distribution in the UK is predominately to practices and hospitals located across England and Wales, in Northern Ireland the distribution is to include hospitals and in Scotland to 16 local distribution centres. The sheer scale of the operations is considerable: weekly ordering means some 800 cold chain deliveries take place on a daily basis. Furthermore, strong consideration must also be given to contingency planning, an area where Movianto UK scored very highly in the bidding process.

In accordance with the Public Contracts Regulations, the Department of Health undertook a tendering exercise to test the market for service and value for money. The offer made by Movianto UK led to the Department of Health appointing the healthcare specialists as the exclusive service provider to store and distribute the vaccines on behalf of the Department.

Whilst Movianto was able to draw on their excellent service record for the current contract, other factors also played a crucial role in the decision-making process. The company was able to demonstrate a considerable investment in their cold store facilities as well as their controlled cold chain receipting and despatch environment. The parcel delivery fleet has also recently been replaced to ensure safe and secure delivery to customers.

Movianto UK, based in Bedford, is well established as a specialist provider of supply chain solutions and services to pharmaceutical and healthcare companies in the UK.

Managing Director of Movianto UK, Russell Atkinson commented "Movianto is proud of being able to offer the Department of Health a tried and trusted cold chain service. In turn, this allows them to have complete confidence in the fact that childhood vaccines are in safe hands."

About Movianto UK

Movianto UK is a subsidiary of the Europe-wide Movianto Group, a leading logistics and distribution service provider for the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry. With a pallet storage capacity of over 50,000 spaces as well as eight strategically located warehouses and depots throughout the country, Movianto UK is able to deliver to every UK hospital and pharmaceutical wholesaler on a daily basis with its own fleet. The company also delivers cold chain and ambient medicines and healthcare products to supermarkets, pharmacies, GPs, nursing homes and direct to patients' homes on a next day basis.

The Movianto Group operates in 13 European countries offering a total storage capacity of 225,000 pallet spaces. Movianto is a business unit of Celesio AG. More information on http://www.movianto.com.

Contact

Richard Shore, Tel. +44(0)1234-248540 / Fax: +44(0)1234-248704
Movianto UK, 1 Progress Park, Bedford, MK42 9XE, United Kingdom
E-mail: richard.shore@movianto.com
Internet: http://www.movianto.com

Vineeta Manglani, Tel. +49-711-947-67-0 / Fax +49-711-9-4-67-87
Sympra GmbH (GPRA), Stafflenbergstrasse 32, 70184 Stuttgart, Germany
E-Mail: movianto@sympra.de
Internet: http://www.sympra.de