In what has been called a “staggering waste” the government has destroyed or written off an estimated £1.4bn worth of personal protective equipment (PPE).

According to reports at least 1.57 billion items of PPE provided by the NHS supplier, Full Support Healthcare, will never be used, despite being manufactured to the proper standard.

It seemingly agreed a £1.78bn deal with the Government in April 2020, with the Northamptonshire supplier providing face masks, respirators, eye protection and aprons as part of the arrangement. It was the largest single PPE order from a single supplier during the Covid era and accounted for 13 percent of the Government’s spending

The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), which was responsible for purchasing and delivering Covid PPE, said: “We do not recognise the £1.4bn quoted. Our position on PPE stock is set out in the department’s annual accounts as audited by the National Audit Office.”

Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting described the contract as a “staggering waste” while the Liberal Democrats said it was a “colossal misuse of public funds”.

In 2022 it was confirmed that The Department for Health & Social Care (DHSC) lost 75% of the £12 billion it spent on personal protective equipment (PPE) in the first year of the pandemic to inflated prices and kit that did not meet requirements – including fully £4 billion of PPE that was never used in the NHS.

In a report published June 10, 2022, the Public Accounts Committee criticized the DHSC and said that as a result of DHSC’s “haphazard purchasing strategy” 24% of the PPE contracts awarded were in dispute – including contracts for products that were not fit for purpose and one contract for 3.5 billion gloves where there were allegations of modern slavery against the manufacture.

Professor Martin Green OBE, Chief Executive of Care England says:
“The revelation that the Government squandered £1.4 billion from the public purse on PPE that was never used is nothing short of a fiscal outrage. At a time when services are most deprived, and in dire need for investment from central government, this misuse of funds underscores a critical failure in fiscal responsibility. When nearly half of care providers had been forced to close parts of their organisation or hand back contracts to their Local Authority as a result of the cost pressures they find themselves operating against, it raises significant concerns.

The hundreds of thousands individuals reliant on funded care and support, the 1.5 million dedicated carers, and the one in three councils no longer confident they can provide basic care as a result of continued underfunding are left only to imagine the potential impact this could have had, if these funds had been managed more effectively.”