Recommendation 14

Not all of the PPE the Department bought can be used. The Department told us that only 0.5% of the 18 billion items of PPE it had received and checked so far had failed to meet clinical safety standards and therefore could not be used at all. However, this figure 17 C&AG’s Report The supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the COVID-19 pandemic, para 2.26; Qq 193–196, 232, 267–269 18 Qq 193–197, 270–271; C&AG’s Report The supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the COVID-19 pandemic, paras 4.5, 4.10 19 Qq 194–197, 248, 267–268 20 Letter from Department of Health & Social Care, 15 January 2021 COVID-19: Government procurement and supply of Personal Protective Equipment 15 is not complete, both because the calculation does not include PPE which the Department hopes to use for different purposes to that for which it was intended, and because much PPE is yet to be received or tested. The Department accepted that this figure would change as it finished its process of checking. The NAO report found that the Department had identified 195 million items of PPE that were unusable or potentially unsuitable, which would be around 1% of the items received to date.21 The Department explained that this included a wider group of products, including those which could not be used for their intended purpose but could be used in other ways.22 In its letter after our evidence session, the Department stated that its updated estimate was that 1.3% of the items bought were not fit for the original intended purpose and that 0.4% were not fit for any purpose. The letter did not provide information on the number of items tested to date.23