closed for four days over the christmas period. alliance health care received 2.5 million devices on christmas eve and then shut amid a nationwide shortage. we have heard from the shadow health secretary who said why on earth to the government not prepare for this and ensure that alternative options for delivery were secured? let s speak to thorrun govind, royal pharmaceutical society chair in england. can tell us a bit more about this ultimate does seem extraordinary. can you explain what happened? it s hard to understand why there was only one so distributor of these lateral flow tests in england and it s very frustrating for pharmacy teams who bore the brunt of the public reaction to not be able to
moment. we really are keen to get more lateral flow tests into pharmacies and pharmacy teams are working externally hard to get them straight out to the public as soon as we get them in. sometimes they are not lasting more than an hour and we are getting a container full, about 56 boxes of lateral flow tests, and they really are going straight out the door as soon as we are getting them. hopefully we will see more coming into pharmacies over the next few days as everyone comes back from christmas break. and i think the other thing to think about is our health care team to incredibly hard, distributors etc and health care teams, pharmacists and health care teams, pharmacists and their support staff. they have been working incredibly hard during this whole pandemic so i don t think we can begrudge out of the distributors having been closed for a few days and indeed even our pharmacy teams having their doors closed for a few days although as a say there were pharmacies with provision acro