‘As the government faces mounting criticism that well-connected people made millions out of Britain’s PPE crisis, Panorama investigates who won out.’

‘More than £12 billion was spent in the first six months of the pandemic on contracts to provide personal protective equipment.’

‘Reporter Richard Bilton meets one man who made £40 million on a deal and speaks to others who felt ignored in favour of less experienced suppliers. As the government refuses to reveal the full details of all its so-called VIP deals, the programme reveals the high-profile connections to one lucrative contract.’

Watch the full programme here

MedSupplyDrive UK is a UK-based charity formed to protect frontline healthcare workers during the pandemic. DAUK have supported them throughout this year.

They are carrying out this key survey on use of reusable FFP3 respirator mask to better guide the adoption of these masks in the healthcare setting. 

COMPLETE THE SURVEY HERE

All entries are anonymous. Please do fill in comments where possible. This survey should take less than 2 minutes to complete. 

Thank you for taking the time to participate in this survey! For any further questions or queries around this survey, please email: info@medsupplydrive.org.uk

In response to Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s statement regarding his unlawful management of PPE during the pandemic: ‘I won’t apologise because to apologise would imply that I’d do something differently’ DAUK’s Dr Katie Sanderson spoke out:

This is a pandemic not an election

How are we going to learn from this if we can’t be honest about what happened? It’s grossly offensive to the families of healthcare workers who got COVID and died, and I think it should be retracted immediately. 

Can you imagine what it feels like if you are the son or daughter of a doctor who died after getting COVID at work to hear that?

Dr Katie Sanderson – LBC Radio

38% of doctors who should have had FFP3 masks were saying they didn’t have them
47% saying they did not have access to long sleeved gowns 
>20% didn’t have eye protection
>60% had not been fit tested, so even if they had an FFP3 mask, it may not be protecting them because it may not have fitted 

“Just getting up for my night shift that I’ve had to pick up because two of our colleagues have come down with COVID and so now there is a rota gap.”

“I caught COVID in the first wave and I followed all the COVID PPE guidelines, you know, all the PPE that I had couldn’t stop me from getting COVID. I felt really sad and scared for the people who were saying that they did not have PPE because it’s just such a terrible disease. It’s very scary.”

Dr Pushpo Hossain

“This is the story of the UK government’s desperate 12 billion pound scramble to kit out the NHS for COVID. And the tens of millions of items of PPE bought at taxpayers expense that now can’t be used as planned. It’s pretty devastating for those who work on the front line and know so much money is being wasted when it could have been invested in our frontline services.”

(David Oliver – NHS Consultant Physician writes) The High Court ruled last week that Matt Hancock had acted unlawfully in failing to publish details, within 30 days, of dozens of contracts awarded without competition for good and services – especially PPE during the pandemic. 

In his interview since, the Health Secretary didn’t seem bothered or sorry. 

He came out all guns blazing, laughing it off, running down the studio clock by saying his focus during Spring 2020 had been on “saving lives” and working tirelessly to procure the best PPE, as if that made the law breaking okay.

There was no apology. No acknowledgement that he had done anything wrong or breached the ministerial code or Nolan Principles for public office, which require honesty, integrity and transparency.

But PPE supplies to frontline staff in health and social care are no laughing matter and the court ruling is the latest in a long line of Government PPE failings.

A BMJ Study in December showed that hands on staff working with patients are around 7 times more likely to be admitted to hospital as Covid-19 patients than people in other roles. Thousands more are still suffering from “long Covid”.

It is a basic moral and legal requirement for employers to give staff in any job the equipment they need to stay safe at work. And NHS staff are government employees or contractors. 

We have come into work surrounded by Covid-19 week after week for year now. We don’t need applause. We don’t want “hero” status for doing our jobs. But we do feel badly let down and Hancock’s attitude hardly helps.

The Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee concluded this month that many healthcare workers had been “put in the appalling situation of having to care for people with Covid-19 without sufficient PPE to protect themselves from infection” and that “as PPE stocks ran perilously low” some were “forced to re-use single use items”.

The PAC also found that social care staff in care homes and home care services had struggled even more to get the right PPE, with the NHS being prioritised. Theirs is very hands on work, going from home to home or room to room to care for vulnerable citizens for low pay.

November’s National Audit Office report on Covid-19 procurement condemned, in unusually strong terms, the Government’s serial incompetence, lack of transparency, slow responses and poor value for public money in procuring PPE from the private sector. 

It was clear that there had been cronyism, with many contracts going to friends or party donors.

The Doctors’ Association UK has collected responses from over 1500 members about failings in supplying them with basic PPE items and another 200 members who were ignored, threatened, silenced or bullied by local bosses when they complained.

Read the full article here: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/david-oliver-ppe-supplies-frontline-23553116

The NHS has been urged to rethink safety for thousands of frontline staff after new research suggested that Covid patients’ coughing is putting them at far greater risk of catching the virus than previously thought.

The study found that coughing generated at least 10 times more infectious “aerosol” particles than speaking or breathing – which could explain why so many NHS staff have fallen ill during the pandemic.

The research has led to fresh demands that anyone caring for someone with Covid-19, or suspected Covid-19, should be provided with the most protective equipment – including FFP3 respirator masks – and that hospital ventilation should be improved.

Health workers are up to four times more likely to contract coronavirus than the general population, with infection rates among those on general hospital wards approximately double those of intensive care unit (ICU) staff – who do have access to the most protective PPE.

This access to higher-level PPE was based on the assumption thatICU wards are more dangerous because treatments such as continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), used to support patients’ breathing, generated large amounts of aerosols – which linger in the air and can be breathed into the lungs.

Staff working in other hospital areas, GP surgeries and care homes are issued with looser-fitting surgical masks, which afford little protection against these tiny particles, but block larger virus-carrying droplets.

The new research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, turns these assumptions on their head.

The research may also boost efforts to force a public inquiry into Covid-19 deaths among NHS staff and care workers. In December, Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK), which represents frontline medics, escalated its threat of judicial review against the government. “Inquiries must be initiated to investigate any factors that may have led to healthcare workers’ deaths,” a spokesperson said.

“We feel that there would be fewer infections among healthcare workers, and fewer deaths, if people had proper masks,” said Dr Katie Sanderson, a junior doctor and committee member of DAUK. “Acute medical wards and A&E, which is where most Covid patients are being cared for, have much lower standards of ventilation than intensive care units, and generally people are coughing all the time.

“This issue affects GPs as well, because most GP commissioners have refused to let GPs have access to proper masks.”

Read the article in full here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/03/covid-coughing-study-suggests-nhs-staff-at-far-greater-risk-than-thought

The High Court has ruled “The Secretary of State acted unlawfully by failing to comply with the Transparency Policy” and that “there is now no dispute that, in a substantial number of cases, the Secretary of State breached his legal obligation to publish Contract Award Notices within 30 days of the award of contracts.” We have won the judicial review we brought alongside Debbie Abrahams MP, Caroline Lucas MP, and Layla Moran MP.

In handing down the judgment, Judge Chamberlain brought into sharp focus why this case was so important. “The Secretary of State spent vast quantities of public money on pandemic-related procurements during 2020. The public were entitled to see who this money was going to, what it was being spent on and how the relevant contracts were awarded.”

The Judge went on to say that if Government had complied with its legal obligations we “would have been able to scrutinise CANs and contract provisions, ask questions about them and raise any issues with oversight bodies such as the NAO or via MPs in Parliament.”  When Government eschews transparency, it evades accountability. 

Government’s behaviour came under criticism in the judgment. If it had admitted to being in breach of the law when we first raised our concerns, it would have never been necessary to take this judicial review to its conclusion. Instead, they chose a path of obfuscation, racking up over £200,000 of legal costs as a result.  

We shouldn’t be forced to rely on litigation to keep those in power honest, but in this case it’s clear that our challenge pushed Government to comply with its legal obligations. Judge Chamberlain stated that the admission of breach by Government was “secured as a result of this litigation and at a late stage of it” and “I have no doubt that this claim has speeded up compliance”. It begs the question, if we hadn’t brought this legal challenge, what other contract details would have remained hidden from view? 

And whilst Government always sought to dismiss our challenge by claiming we needed to be an ‘economic operator’ to have standing, the judgment states that it is unrealistic that economic operators would have challenged Government’s breach of the law in these circumstances. In other words, if we hadn’t taken this case, there are not many others who could have done so. 

This judgment, which can be found here, is a victory for all of us concerned with proper governance and proof of the power of litigation to hold Government to account. But there is still a long way to go before the Government’s house is in order. We have now written to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care detailing what needs to be done to improve procurement processes and ensure value for British taxpayers.

But for now, we can take a moment to celebrate this win. Thank you, as ever, for all your support.   

Read more here: https://goodlawproject.org/update/the-judgment-is-in/

DAUK (working in partnership with Messly) logged >1500 reports nationally highlighting inadequate access to PPE; 220 reports frontline doctors being warned, threatened, disciplined, or made to feel bullied or unsupported for raising issues about PPE

COVID-related HCW death: 
Katie Sanderson (DAUK), “We know that the appalling death toll of 882 frontline health and social care workers will continue to rise if no action is taken. “The investigation of these deaths has been piecemeal and inconsistent.”

PHE guidelines on PPE: 
Jenny Vaughan, “We do not feel that the PPE currently mandated by Public Health England offers healthcare workers an acceptable level of protection, and we are calling for the guidance to be urgently revised to ensure that all staff exposed to covid-19 have access to high level respiratory protection.

“There is also a clear lottery among hospital trusts: some are defying Public Health England rules to give their staff the protection they deserve due to concerns about hospital spread of the virus.”

Read the full article here: https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n442?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_term=hootsuite&utm_content=sme&utm_campaign=usage

Doctors and nurses are being warned by hospitals and other NHS bodies not to raise their concerns publicly, according to a dossier of evidence collated by the DAUK association uk’ (DAUK). Tactics being used to deter staff from voicing their unease include “threatening” emails, the possibility of disciplinary action and in two cases being sent home from work.

Some doctors have been given a ticking-off after managers were irritated by material they had posted on social media.

“Tactics being used to deter staff from voicing their unease include “threatening” emails, the possibility of disciplinary action and in two cases being sent home from work. Some doctors have been given a ticking-off after managers were irritated by material they had posted on social media.

“Doctors across the frontlines are extremely concerned about the lack of personal protective equipment [PPE]. Many have told us they have tried to raise concerns through the proper channels but have been warned against taking these concerns further,” said Dr Samantha Batt Rawden, DAUK’s president.

“At this time when we desperately need every single doctor on the frontline, some have had their careers threatened, and at least two doctors have been sent home from work. This is unacceptable. Doctors have a moral duty to make their concerns regarding Covid-19 public if these cannot be resolved locally,” she added.

The Independent has seen a series of emails and messages warning staff not to speak to the media during the coronavirus outbreak. One GP has been barred from working in a community hospital in Ludlow after making comments about the lack of equipment, while another in London said they were told to remove protective equipment they had purchased themselves.

NHS England confirmed it was controlling media communications, which it said was part of its national emergency incident planning to ensure the public received “clear and consistent information”. A spokesperson said some NHS staff had already spoken out about equipment concerns.

Dr Rinesh Parmar, chairman of the Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) said it had received a number of concerns from doctors. He added: “We are seeing draconian measures used to gag doctors and nurses on the frontline. The NHS will only benefit if we learn from each other’s experience. If we are unable to share our learning then patients will be put at risk.

“We must protect the frontline. NHS staff should not be gagged.” The DAUK said they had received examples from across the country including the East of England, Yorkshire, Essex and Lincolnshire

Excerpt from The Independent