The UK sent a Royal Air Force plane to Turkey to collect a consignment of 400,000 protective gowns for NHS workers, but officials battling to procure safety kit warned there may be further delays before the equipment arrives in Britain.
The shipment, which was expected over the weekend, is needed urgently to make up for a critical shortage of gowns and other personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare staff treating coronavirus patients.
Under pressure to explain the continued delays, Chancellor Rishi Sunak said the government would “pursue every possible option” to secure more safety equipment.
“This is an international challenge that many other countries are experiencing,” he said at the daily Downing Street press conference on Monday afternoon.
“Alongside the efforts of British businesses, and our embassies around the world, we are working hard to get the PPE our frontline NHS and social care staff need . . . people on the front line can rest assured that we’re doing absolutely everything we can and straining everything we can to get the equipment they need.”
On Monday evening, an RAF A400M aircraft left Brize Norton in Oxfordshire to collect the PPE order from Turkey, but one government official said it was unlikely that it would be flying back to the UK soon because of problems in clearing the material for export.
Mr Sunak insisted there were regular shipments despite the “unexpected delays” to the consignment from Turkey, including a delivery of 140,000 gowns from Myanmar.
Earlier in the day, Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, suggested that the government had mismanaged its strategy for ordering PPE. “Bitter experience has shown until a consignment has actually landed, the boxes checked and equipment tested the NHS can’t count on gowns being available for the front line, so rather than being marched to the top of the hill and down again we should focus on what we know,” he told the BBC.
Giving the example of an expected consignment of 200,000 gowns from China which actually only contained 20,000 gowns on arrival, Mr Hopson warned against relying too heavily on individual shipments. He added that NHS staff were currently getting through approximately 150,000 gowns a day.
In an attempt to get a grip on PPE shortages, the government announced over the weekend that Paul Deighton, chief executive of the organising committee for the 2012 London Olympics and a former Treasury minister, had been appointed to co-ordinate procurement efforts.
Healthcare workers have voiced continued safety concerns as supplies of safety kit have dwindled.
Professor Yvonne Doyle, medical director for Public Health England, admitted that the PPE situation was “concerning” but said 12m pieces had been delivered to 141 trusts over the weekend.
Asked whether she would back staff who decided not to work if they felt PPE was inadequate, Prof Doyle said: “Certainly people have to make their decisions based on whether they are in a risky situation or not.
“It is very difficult to legislate for all of that from a distance here. But the guidance is very clear on what is safe and not safe to do.”
