Health Care Department of England Writes Off £9bn Spent on COVID PPE Drive

Read Time:2 Minute, 25 Second

According to numbers disclosed on Monday, ministers spent about £9 billion on personal protective equipment that was either inadequate, malfunctioning, expired, or significantly overpriced.

The Department of Health and Social Care already spent £12 billion on emergency PPE for England in the 2021 year ending at March 31. Thousands of things purchased for £2.6 billion were never used by the NHS – the sum has now risen to £2.7 billion – and another £670 million in PPE was never used in any health care environment.

The reason for this, according to the annual report, was that it was malfunctioning, and products worth £750 million had passed their safe date before they could be utilized.

The £4.7 billion difference has been shown between the grossly inflated prices which the team of DHSC has been paid for PPE to fill England’s modest stockpile and the worth of that equipment that is used.

The records, which were reviewed by the National Audit Office, do not show where the extra £4.7 billion was paid, whether through higher prices charged by PPE manufacturing, mostly in China, or large profits gained by UK firms and their middlemen.

Gareth Davies found that PPE procurement was specifically prone to fraud. This took place because of competitive bidding processes being stopped. There was close to no expertise used while handling multimillion-pound contracts.

He explained that procurement done under the influence of COVID has led to increased fraud risk. There was a wide range of new suppliers showing up, which caused an inspection inefficiency. Therefore, he is now less confident in putting his trust in avoiding fraud.

Davies warned that PPE probable fraud started showing up when Theodore Agnew, the cabinet Office Minister resigned. He claimed that they have been unable to tackle a fraud of £4.9 billion, which was generated through false COVID loans.

The DHSC concluded that in the department’s opinion, these facts provide certainty that large levels of fraud exist in relation to PPE inventory purchase.

One of the most popular and criticized aspects of the government’s pandemic response has been its frenzied effort. We can say that it refills an empty inventory for all PPE. There are companies that hold a lengthy history with NHS.

They claim that these processes were overlooked by procurement procedures. However, on the other hand, people that held no expertise in PPE were handed multi-million-pound contracts.

Pat McFadden, in his recent interview, declared that the level of these wastes had perished the claim of conservatives being an important source of public resources.

When DHSC officials were questioned on this topic, they informed them that saving the lives of people was their ultimate goal of theirs.

As per the report, there have been over 17.5 billion worth of deliveries to overcome this issue. This worked as a potential to generate world-class services even in times of crisis.