Recommendation 7

We asked the Department how much PPE it expected to need over the next 12 months. The Department estimated that it will require around 11.7 billion items of PPE from 1 June 2021 to 31 May 2022, although it noted that this estimate was highly uncertain. As of 17 May, the amount of PPE that the Department had ordered was 2.7 times this estimated requirement. It explained that it had purchased PPE on the basis of reasonable worst-case 7 Letter from the Department of Health & Social Care, 22 June 2021 8 Q 62; Committee of Public Accounts, COVID-19: Government procurement and supply of Personal Protective Equipment, para 14 9 Committee of Public Accounts, COVID-19: Government procurement and supply of personal protective equipment 10 Qq 56, 59, 61; Letter from the Department of Health & Social Care, 22 June 2021 11 Committee of Public Accounts, COVID-19: Government procurement and supply of personal protective equipment, para 8 12 Letter from the Department of Health & Social Care, 22 June 2021 Initial lessons from the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic 11 scenarios, and that it was in the “lucky position” that these had not materialised, so it expected to have more PPE than it needed. Excess stock was especially high for certain types of PPE. The Department told us that it aims to hold safety stock of at least four months’ supply at peak usage. Based on the figures that the Department provided us, as of 7 June, it was holding an estimated 13 years’ worth of stock of eye protectors (after recycling 22 million items to make food containers); over 6 years’ stock of hand hygiene products; and over five years’ stock of gowns and clinical waste bags.13 In its written evidence to us, the Department told us that, as of May 2021, storing its central stock of PPE had cost the Department approximately £6.7 million a week, down from £11.7 million a week in January 2021.14 Support for the health and social care workforce