The British government has written nearly $12.6 billion (£9.9 billion) off the value of personal protective equipment it bought in response to the pandemic.
The country’s Department of Health and Social Care spent nearly $17.3 billion (£13.6 billion) on PPE from 2020 to 2022. But much of it was either unusable or has fallen in value since it was purchased, an official report has revealed.
Some PPE could not be used because it was defective or did not meet the standards required by the country’s health watchdogs. Some was technically usable, but arrived too late to be used before its expiry date.
The DHSC intends to dispose of almost all its remaining PPE stock, auditors wrote in the report, “as it will not be used” by the country’s public health system.
Around $256 million (£202 million) is thought to have been lost to fraud, but investigations into criminal activity are ongoing. Officials are still working to reclaim money spent on orders that weren’t delivered.
Panic and cronyism
Britain’s Conservative-led government has faced numerous criticisms over its handling of PPE during the Covid-19 pandemic.
During the first half of 2020, global demand for PPE soared while manufacturing in China — the world’s biggest producer of much of the equipment — collapsed as Covid-19 took hold.
The Chinese government went on to requisition factories making masks and respirators for domestic use, further squeezing international supply.
This global shortage saw countries scrambling to get their hands on equipment to protect medical staff and prevent the spread of disease.
The U.K. government was criticised for failing to adequately stockpile PPE ahead of the pandemic.
Doctors reported government shipments arriving with new expiry dates stickered onto original packaging.
When fresh supplies did make it to the U.K., logistical issues meant they weren’t always distributed to the sites most in need.
Hospital procurement teams desperately tried to secure protective equipment from from hardware stores and even fetish companies as typical supply routes ran dry.
Government procurement teams also rushed to secure stock, bypassing normal rules and setting up a much-maligned “VIP lane” that saw some contracts given out to companies with links to serving ministers and members of the country’s upper house.
The country’s National Crime Agency recently froze the assets of Baroness Michelle Mone, who was appointed to the House of Lords by former Prime Minister David Cameron back in 2015.
Mone and her husband, who have links to a firm contracted to supply equipment during the pandemic, are under scrutiny as part of a probe into possible PPE-linked corruption.
Wasted orders
As demand for PPE eventually fell, many of the orders government officials had made at the height of the first Covid-19 wave came back to bite.
Long lead times for much of this equipment saw thousands of shipping containers filled with PPE arrive in U.K. ports months after peak demand had passed.
The government continued to pay costs for PPE languishing in storage on its shores and abroad for at least two years.
Treating money like ‘confetti’
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting from the opposition Labour party criticised current prime minister Rishi Sunak over his oversight of PPE. Sunak was the country’s Chancellor of the Exchequor — equivalent to finance minister — from February 2020 to July 2022.
“As chancellor, Rishi Sunak threw away taxpayers’ money as if it were confetti and has failed to get our money back. Sunak’s carelessness has cost our country dear,” Streeting said.
Although no official date has been set, the U.K. is widely expected to hold a general election in the second half of this year.
Streeting promised his own party would appoint a commissioner to invesitage Covid corruption, as well as “Office of Value” to assess how wisely public funds are spent.
Daisy Cooper, member of parliament and health spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats — Britain’s fourth largest party — said the new figures revealed “a sickening level of waste.”
“Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been poured down the drain because of this Conservative government’s incompetence,” she said in an emailed statement. “To rub salt in the wound, some of this money was wasted on dodgy contracts with Conservative cronies, the vast majority of which has still not been recovered.”
Cooper called on the country’s health secretary, Victoria Atkins, to “explain how so much taxpayers’ money was frittered away and what is being done to get it back.”
Sunak’s spokesperson said it was “important not to forget the circumstances” in which the U.K. bou “It’s important not to forget the circumstances in which the UK and countries globally found themselves during a pandemic when globally PPE was in extremely short supply.
“The costs as a result increased significantly and the government took the decision very transparently to do everything possible to secure protective equipment for frontline health and care workers. That was right.”
