CEVA Logistics has opened a fully refurbished 132,000 sq ft facility at Redditch. The renovated site further adds to CEVA's investment in the pharmaceutical logistics industry and will serve a number of customers across the healthcare sector.
Refurbishments at the West Midlands site included the addition of LED lighting as well as the installation of a HVAC system (heating, ventilation and air conditioning). The HVAC system enables the facility to provide temperature controlled areas which is a requirement for the storage of certain healthcare items. There is also a dedicated area in the warehouse which can store specialist items requiring to be kept between the specific range of two and eight degrees Celsius.
The refurbished site is now an MHRA approved facility (Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency) which certifies it as a safe and secure component of a medical supply chain. In order to receive this authorization, a potential authorization/license holder must show compliance with a number of principles including the segregation of Prescription Only Medication and the safe storage of products in relation to their temperature.
The opening of the facility coincides with a new five year warehousing agreement and a three year transport agreement with Nutricia – the UKs leading provider of medical nutrition. Under this agreement, CEVA provides the warehousing and distribution of medical nutritional feed products for a wide variety of medical conditions for both pharmaceutical wholesalers and home-bound patients. CEVAs site has a Registered Pharmacy to dispense prescriptions and the onsite Pharmacist and support team accurately check all home delivery orders and clinically check all prescriptions using bespoke software.
In addition, BMI Healthcare, UK’s largest private hospital group is also transitioning to the new specialist facility where CEVA will continue to provide warehousing and distribution for its medicines and hospital consumable goods. Further healthcare customers will be operational at Redditch before year end.
"In order to provide logistics service to the healthcare market, you must meet strict regulations and compliance standards and by making this investment in our Redditch facility, we are ready and approved to meet the demands of the market" states CEVA's Executive Vice President UK, Ireland and Nordics, Michael O'Donoghue. "We have equipped CEVA with a state-of-the-art showcase site that will meet the exact requirements of our healthcare customers both now and in the future. We have built up strong partnerships with our clients in this industry and we are looking forward to seeing this new facility strengthen and add value to their supply chains,” he added.