Alliance Healthcare UK and Boots UK donate lifesaving medicine to the NHS

Alliance Healthcare UK and Boots UK have donated 500,000 2mg Almus Dexamethasone tablets to the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) in a joint commitment to the NHS and UK patients in support of the fight against COVID-19. The decision came when UK experts announced the benefits of Dexamethasone in June following a recovery trial. They found that the low-dose steroid treatment can reduce fatalities by up to one third in hospitalised patients with severe respiratory complications of COVID-19.  

Working together, Julian Mount, Managing Director, Alliance Healthcare UK and Seb James, Managing Director, Boots UK and ROI, wrote letters to Sir Simon Stevens, Chief Executive Officer of the NHS and Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with an offer to donate the lifesaving medicine to the NHS and support the major breakthrough in the fight against COVID-19.  

John Southall, Senior Pharmacy Purchasing Technician at Mid and South Essex University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said: “It was evident from early COVID-19 trials that Dexamethasone was very important in the treatment of severely ill patients as it was shown to improve symptoms very quickly in some patients, consequently preventing many patients progressing on to requiring costly mechanical ventilation and long term hospital care. It was very generous and civic minded of Alliance Healthcare UK and Boots UK to donate this quantity to the NHS.”