This week the Guardian newspaper raised concerns that the “NHS admits doctors may be using surgical tools made by children in Sailkot Pakistan”.
In response to the wider concerns, regarding transparency in the supply chains of manufacturers that supply the NHS, Surgitrac Instruments states:
Our manufacturing facilities are located in China, where we produce quality assured CE certified, specialist surgical instruments, manufactured to internationally recognised standards.
Our supply chain is transparent and no forced, or child labour is used during our manufacturing.
We sell direct to the NHS, hundreds of our products are on NHS framework agreements including the NHS Complete Ophthalmology Solutions , and our surgical instruments are also available from the NHS Supply Chain.
The Labour Standards Assurance System (LSAS) provides a mandate for labour standards in the medical supply industry. The LSAS was developed by the United Kingdom National Health Service (NHS) Supply Chain alongside the Department of Health and other industry bodies.
During the NHS’ tender processes we demonstrate that the manufacturers we use, also meet those standards, including the Ethical Trading Initiative’s ETI base code.
We are currently accredited to Level 2 Labour Standards Assurance Policy (LSAS) and are working towards achieving Level 3. This means that we are committed to working with our suppliers to achieve high social and ethical standards within our business and throughout our supply chain. You can view our policy here.
Level 2 is the requirement to maintain a NHS Supply Chain contract.
If you would like to know more about our corporate social responsibility please visit our website here.
http://www.surgitrac.com/about-us/csr-ethics/
