The Covid inquiry released findings examining personal protective equipment shortages and spending during the pandemic, determining that substantial financial waste occurred alongside operational failures that endangered healthcare workers and patients.
Baroness Hallett, the inquiry chair, identified £9.9bn in wasted procurement spending out of the £14.9bn total government expenditure on PPE. The broader expenditure on pandemic-related equipment including testing kits and ventilators exceeded £42bn between January 2020 and June 2022. The inquiry found the UK entered the pandemic with depleted stockpiles, with only a third of masks in England’s emergency supply being usable and Scotland possessing no high-grade respiratory masks for hospital use. Care homes, GP surgeries, and pharmacies were expected to independently source their own protective equipment, which the inquiry characterized as a significant planning oversight.
The government ultimately wrote off £9.9bn in unused or expired PPE along with £157m in unused healthcare equipment. Scotland reported £8mn in written-off equipment, Wales £18m in unused PPE, and Northern Ireland £43m in masks and gowns at risk of expiration. The “ventilator challenge” program, which sought rapid development of breathing equipment, resulted in £143m in charges for designs never produced.
The inquiry criticized the “VIP lane” procurement system, established in April 2020, which prioritized PPE offers accompanied by recommendations from ministers, MPs, and senior officials. Hallett described this approach as a “misguided attempt at prioritisation” that embedded unfairness into emergency procurement. However, the inquiry chair stated no evidence of cronyism or corruption was identified among ministers and officials in final contract awards. Testimony regarding PPE Medpro, a firm linked to businessman Doug Barrowman and Baroness Michelle Mone in relation to contracts valued over £200m, was heard behind closed doors due to an ongoing National Crime Agency investigation.
The inquiry recommended a comprehensive overhaul of emergency PPE procurement and distribution systems, development of a domestic healthcare equipment industry strategy treating such supplies as national assets, and improvements to the pandemic stockpile maintained in Merseyside.
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