PPE failures left NHS staff poorly protected and wasted £10bn, Covid inquiry finds

The lives of NHS staff and patients were put at risk in the pandemic because of a lack of adequate personal protective equipment (PPE), the Covid inquiry has said.

It found that a “vast amount” of taxpayers’ money was wasted on PPE – almost £10bn of the £14.9bn spent by the UK and devolved governments.

The country entered the pandemic with its stockpile of masks, gowns and gloves in a “perilous state” and was “simply not ready to compete” in the global race to secure new supplies, added the chair Baroness Hallett.

She criticised the controversial “VIP lane”, which prioritised offers of PPE from those with political connections, as a “misguided” policy which undermined public confidence.

But she said there was “no evidence of cronyism or corruption” by ministers or other officials when awarding the final contracts.

When the cost of home testing kits and other equipment, such as ventilators, was included, the total amount spent by the government between January 2020 and June 2022 exceeded £42bn, the inquiry found.

The UK’s emergency stockpile of PPE, meant to last at least 15 weeks before being replenished, was running out by the end of March 2020 as demand from hospitals soared.

Only a third of the masks in England’s pandemic stockpile were usable, the inquiry found, while Scotland had no supplies of high-grade respiratory masks used in hospitals.

At the time, care homes, GP surgeries and pharmacies were all expected to source their own PPE, something the report described as a “major failure in planning”.