ORGANISATIONS representing hospital trusts in England have rounded on the Government over its promise of more personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect workers in the fight against Covid-19.
Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, said there was “relatively low confidence” that a shipment of 400,000 surgical gowns which had been due to arrive in the UK from Turkey on Sunday would make its way into the country on Monday.
The lack of PPE remains a dominant issue for NHS staff, as hospitals are forced into workarounds, including washing equipment and asking workers to accept wearing less protective gear.
The NHS Confederation, which represents organisations across healthcare, has also reacted angrily to Government promises of more PPE, saying delays on the shipment from Turkey “makes a difficult situation worse”.
Its chief executive, Niall Dickson, said: “It would have been better had the Government not made the announcement in the first place” and said staff would need to make their own assessment over whether they felt safe with the PPE currently on offer.
Hopson told Radio 4’s Today programme that it was wrong to focus on individual consignments of PPE because “bitter experience over the last few weeks” has shown they cannot be relied upon, with some boxes containing the wrong items and thousands of pieces missing.
“So rather than being marched up to the top of the hill and being marched back down again, let’s just focus on what we know we can be certain of,” he said.
“Let’s not focus on individual consignments, let’s try and get as quickly as possible to a sustainable supply of these gowns.
“There’s no doubt that at the moment, we have now got trusts that have definitely got shortages of gowns.”
Hopson said trusts were reserving the stock of fluid-resistant gowns they do have for areas of high clinical risk, such as intensive care units, and using workarounds in other areas.
“There’s one trust that’s basically discovered that if you launder those gowns at 60 degrees … there’s probably up to three times that you can do that, and the gowns appear to still be fully fluid-repellent,” he said.
While there had been many problems with consignments from abroad failing and the wrong items being sent, Hopson said: “I suppose the question that we will need to ask whether this is over, is actually: was the pandemic stock reserve that was meant to tide us over, was it correctly configured?”
The NHS is thought to use around 150,000 gowns a day, meaning the stock from Turkey would last less than three days.
Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said he was hopeful the gowns would still arrive, telling BBC One’s Breakfast programme: “We are very hopeful that later today that flight will take off and we will get those gowns.
“We are working very hard to resolve this, there have been challenges at the Turkish end.
“I don’t want to start making more and more promises but I understand that that flight will take off this afternoon and they will be delivered.”
Another 25 million gowns from China had been procured and the UK would be “getting those shortly as well”, he said.
Scotland is in lockdown. Shops are closing and newspaper sales are falling fast. It’s no exaggeration to say that the future of The National is at stake. Please consider supporting us through this with a digital subscription from just £2 for 2 months by following this link: http://www.thenational.scot/subscribe. Thanks – and stay safe.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel