Conclusion 7

We are extremely concerned by the widely reported shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) faced by NHS and care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. There have been numerous reports of the lack of PPE for clinical and social care staff during the crisis. The Department says that nationally it never ran out PPE stock, but that COVID-19 had put supply chains and distribution networks under unprecedented strain. It tells us that this required substantial changes to how the system managed distribution and posed great challenges getting the available equipment to the right place at the right time. The Department says that it buys the vast majority of its PPE on international markets and will continue to do so. Although the Department says it is committed to building up stocks to meet longer- term demand, we were not convinced that it was treating the matter with sufficient urgency. In particular, the governance arrangements to procure and distribute PPE across health and social care remain unclear and uncertainty prevails around future provision of local PPE across the health and social care sectors. It is absolutely vital that the same problems do not happen again in the event of a second wave. Recommendation: The Department should write to the Committee within two months to clarify its governance arrangements and outline at what point in the future it expects to have a predictable supply of stock and ready access to PPE supply within the NHS and care sectors. This should include detail on the roles and responsibilities for the procurement and distribution of personal protective equipment across NHS and social care settings. 8 NHS capital expenditure and financial management 1 Resuming NHS services following the COVID-19 crisis