UK wasted £9.9bn on Covid PPE, investigation finds; Inventory, and purchase defects are flagged

Nearly £9.9 billion of personal protective equipment (PPE) purchased during the Covid-19 pandemic was wasted in the UK, a public inquiry has found. The report concluded that the country entered the health crisis with insufficient stocks and an emergency procurement system unprepared to meet the increase in demand.In a report released on Tuesday, inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallett said the UK and devolved governments spent £14.9 billion on PPE during the pandemic, with around two-thirds of that expenditure eventually being written off as unused or expired equipment, the BBC reported.The UK began the pandemic with its PPE stockpile in a “parlous state” and was “simply not prepared to compete” in the global race to secure masks, gowns and gloves as the coronavirus spread.According to the investigation, shortages of protective equipment are putting NHS staff and patients at risk, while care homes, GP surgeries and pharmacies have been left to provide their own PPE, a move described as a “major failure of planning”.The inquiry also criticized the government’s “VIP Corridor”, which was introduced in April 2020 to speed up offers of PPE referred by ministers, MPs, peers and senior officials. Baroness Hallett described the policy as a “misguided attempt at prioritization” that undermined public confidence by giving preferential treatment to politically connected suppliers.

However, the report said it found no evidence of favoritism or corruption by ministers or officials in awarding contracts.When including spending on home Covid test kits, ventilators and other medical equipment, the UK government spent more than £42 billion between January 2020 and June 2022, the investigation found.The report indicated that only a third of England’s stock of face masks was usable at the beginning of the pandemic, while Scotland did not have a stock of high-quality respirator masks used in hospitals.It also claimed other losses, including £157 million worth of unused healthcare equipment and £143 million spent under the government’s Ventilator Challenge program on designs that never entered production.The inquiry recommended a “radical overhaul” of the UK’s emergency procurement and distribution systems, improving the national pandemic stockpile, and developing a local manufacturing strategy for vital healthcare equipment to better prepare the country for future public health emergencies.In response to the findings, the UK government said it would carefully consider the inquiry’s recommendations and remained committed to learning lessons from the pandemic to strengthen preparedness for future health crises.