Boots UK and Alliance Healthcare have donated 500,000 dexamethasone tablets to the NHS to help treat patients hospitalised with Covid-19.

The multiple and wholesaler, both of which are owned by Walgreen Boots Alliance, made the decision to donate 500,000 dexamethasone 2mg tablets in the wake of evidence suggesting the low-cost steroid can reduce deaths by up to a third in hospital patients with severe respiratory complications from coronavirus.

The delivery was recently made to Public Health England, which will distribute the medicine to hospitals across the UK as required.

Alliance Healthcare UK managing director Julian Mount commented: “The outcome presented a fantastic opportunity for Alliance Healthcare and Boots UK to further demonstrate their support and friendship to the NHS.”

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 to donate this quantity to the NHS. The quantity fed into the Central Stock Pile was vast, and exceeded actual requirements.”