NHS England to ban products of slavery from its supply chain

An amendment to the Health and Social Care Act, which completed its parliamentary passage last week, will bar the NHS in England from buying buying goods and equipment from areas where it is claimed forced labour is used in supply chains.

Whilst the amendment did not specifically reference China, there have repeated concerns about the use of forced labour in the Xinjiang province of western China.

Reports from NGOs have documented the detention of many thousands of people - mostly the largely Muslim Uyghur minority - in camps the authorities insist are for the re-education of extremists.

The amendment set out the steps the NHS should take to assess the risks associated with individual suppliers and the basis on which they should be excluded from any tendering process.

Modern slavery campaigners have supported the measure saying that it effectively create a blacklist of companies banned from providing goods and services to the NHS - including medical equipment, security technology and basic infrastructure.

Luke de Pulford, chief executive of anti-slavery campaign group Arise, which pushed for the change, said:

"This is easily the most significant advance in supply chain regulation since the Modern Slavery Act in 2015, and in many ways goes much further.

"I know all in the anti-slavery movement hope that the rest of government follows the health secretary's lead on this, and roots out slavery from our supply chains completely."

Department of Health and Social Care records show the government bought 24.1bn items of PPE originating from China, including 10.7bn gloves during the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to £5.8bn worth of lateral flow tests.

In October 2021, a NHS glove supplier in Malaysia, Supermax Corporation Berhad, was banned from importing products into the US due to its alleged rights abuses in its supply chain, becoming the second Malaysian rubber glove manufacturer to have its products banned from the US, after the world's largest latex glove maker Top Glove received a similar ban.