Sustainability
Giving ‘push’ gowns the shove
Under the PPE Transition strategy, the provision of items sourced by the Government during the COVID-19 pandemic – including disposable surgical ‘push’ gowns – will continue to be free of charge until 31 March 2024 or until stocks are depleted. This is simply too late, says Roberta Charlett, who explores the implications of the strategy for NHS Net Zero and clinical waste targets. She explains why now is the time to act if ambitions of a more sustainable future are to be realised.
When COVID-19 hit the country and the first national lockdown was announced in March 2020, there was a scramble from officials to secure PPE – including surgical gowns – as it was feared that the country had an ‘inadequate’ stockpile to cope with the pandemic and protect frontline workers. This was a period of great uncertainty which
undoubtedly gave rise to some questionable decisions. In terms of healthcare, it is estimated that the Department of Health and Social Care lost 75% of the £12 billion it spent on PPE in the first year of the pandemic. This included £4 billion which could not be used and would have to be disposed of because it did not meet NHS standards.1
PPE purchasing during the pandemic Reflecting on the situation, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Dame Meg Hillier MP, said: “The story of PPE purchasing is perhaps the most shameful episode in the UK Government response to the pandemic…(it) splurged huge amounts of money, paying obscenely inflated prices and payments to middlemen in a chaotic rush, during which they chucked out even the most cursory due diligence.” Much of this PPE was sourced from overseas and, according to the National Audit Office, if the equipment had been bought at 2019 prices, it would have cost £10 billion less.2
During this
early stage of the pandemic the Government adopted what it called an “entirely new ‘open- source’ approach to procurement”, later stating that “absolutely central to this new approach was our willingness to work with brand-new suppliers, because this was a brand-new marketplace for PPE.”3
In reality, the solutions required could already be found closer to home
The ‘VIP lane’ Particular controversy surrounds the operation of a ‘VIP lane’ for PPE suppliers, and the Government’s decision to award contracts to two firms under the system, during the first wave of the pandemic, has since been ruled ‘illegal’ by a high court judge,6
who described the
in the form of reusable items reprocessed here, in the UK, and lessons still need to be learned from this. Following the Government’s call for PPE suppliers, over 15,000 businesses came forward with over 24,000 offers within a 14-week period. Thousands of contracts were subsequently awarded to private companies, costing billions of pounds of public money. In a New York Times article,4
it was claimed that from January to
November 2020, pandemic-related contracts worth £22 billion were awarded, with around half of this sum going to companies with political connections or no prior experience. The article was later refuted in a response from the UK Government5
but, despite this, the procurement
of PPE during the pandemic remains a point of contention.
allocation of deals under the VIP lane as ‘flawed’, stating: “There is evidence that opportunities were treated as high priority even where there were no objectively justifiable grounds for expediting the offer…the claimants have established that operation of the high priority lane was in breach of the obligation of equal treatment under the PCR (public contract regulations)…the illegality is marked by this judgment.” One of the other companies to benefit from this fast-track approach to procurement was set up following the outbreak of the pandemic. It is currently involved in a lawsuit with the Government, which is suing the business for £130 million claiming that the PPE items they supplied were unusable as they “did not comply with relevant laws applying to medical devices” and the business “failed to provide certification to establish that the gowns had been reliably sterilised for medical use, rendering them unusable in the NHS”.7 The firm was paid £122 million for 25 million
gowns before the products had been inspected in the UK. Although the labelling on the packaging had a European quality assurance standard CE mark on it, this had no number alongside it. CE numbers identify that officially accredited organisations have followed the correct processes and procedures, and without this accompanying number, the CE mark was therefore regarded as invalid. This led the Department of Health and Social
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