Recommendation 20

Almost all the PPE was manufactured abroad and had to be shipped, flown or put on a train to the UK. This meant it took a long time to be delivered. Therefore, despite the creation of the parallel supply chain, the time lag between ordering PPE and it being available, the Department could barely satisfy local organisations’ requirements.30 Representatives of the frontline of health and social care sector told us they experienced various problems accessing the PPE they needed, and in some cases could not access it 27 Qq 109–110, 116–118, 120, 146; C&AG’s Report The supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the COVID-19 pandemic, Figure 3 28 Qq 13, 120, 145–146; C&AG’s Report The supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the COVID-19 pandemic, paras 8, 1.8–1.9, 1.14, 1.16, Figure 4; House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee, Oral evidence: Coronavirus – NHS Preparedness, Session 2019–2021, HC 36, 17 March 2020, Qq 129–132 29 Qq 144–147 30 C&AG’s Report The supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the COVID-19 pandemic, paras 13 and 2.22, Figure 9 COVID-19: Government procurement and supply of Personal Protective Equipment 17 at all. The British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing told us that, in March and April, the PPE they ordered by providers through the NHS Supply Chain was not provided and when government did eventually provide PPE it provided only tiny amounts. Care England explained that providers had to buy their own PPE at hugely inflated costs, buying from suppliers they were unfamiliar with and running the risk of being sold substandard PPE. The British Medical Association provided one example of paying £150 for five respirator masks which, as shown in the NAO report, would have cost around £1 each in 2019. Care England told us that the situation within the social care sector was even worse than the NHS, with established supply chains being disrupted and reports of PPE being redirected from social