£424m stockpiling of flu drug incompetent 
say audit watchdogs

Around 6.5 million units of the Tamiflu bought by the Department of Health also had to be written off because it could not guarantee the antiviral had been stored correctly, the National Audit Office (NAO) said.

That mistake cost taxpayers £74m, a “shocking example of incompetence” according to Public Accounts committee chairwoman Margaret Hodge.

The NAO began investigating after a number of MPs raised concerns about the decision to stockpile Tamiflu.

It said that while there is a general consensus that the drug reduces the duration of influenza and, in certain circumstances, prevents it, there is less agreement about how effective it is in preventing complications like pneumonia, reducing the need for hospital treatment or lowering death rates.

Of the 40 million units of Tamiflu bought, a quarter were written off. Some 6.5 million of those were ditched before reaching the end of their shelf life in 2009-10 because the department was unable to verify that the stock, distributed to the NHS during that year’s
 pandemic, had been stored correctly.

The department began stockpiling Tamiflu in 2006 in response to the increasing concerns about bird flu.

Overall, £560m was spent on antiviral medicine – £424m on Tamiflu and £136m on back-up drug Relenza – between 2006/7 and 2012/13.

Additional stocks of Tamiflu are due to reach their end of shelf life and be replaced during 2013-14 at a cost of £49m, the NAO said.

Mrs Hodge said: “It is extremely worrying to find that the Government spent £424m stockpiling 40 million units of Tamiflu between 2006-07 and 2012-13 despite there being question marks over the effectiveness of the drug.

“Although Tamiflu speeds up recovery times, experts do not agree over its ability to reduce complications and hospitalisations.”