PPE FOCUS: UK rejects six opportunities to join EU PPE procurement schemes

LAST WEEK, the borough council received their supply of PPE from central government. But the supply is not enough, and the council are sourcing PPE through private sellers.

Every day, health and care staff across the borough use 3,928 sets of gloves, aprons and masks.

This equipment is used to protect staff, and the most vulnerable members of the community. It is essential for stopping the transmission of the coronavirus — but there is not enough.

This is not an experience unique to the Wokingham Borough, nationally the shortage is becoming more evident each day.

The national picture

On Monday, the Doctors’ Association UK warned that supplies of protective gowns used to safely treat coronavirus patients are no longer available to many doctors in high-risk roles.

This is because gowns and full-face visors were not part of the national pandemic stock, so their delivery has been less reliable than face masks, aprons and gloves.

And concerns have been raised that the shortage of PPE could increase the spread of coronavirus to health and care workers.

This comes as the death toll among doctors and nurses continues to rise across the country.

On Saturday, health secretary, Matt Hancock, said that 19 NHS workers had died. But Mr Hancock insists the government is unaware of a link between PPE shortages and the deaths of NHS staff.

Earlier this month, the Doctors’ Association UK co-signed a joint statement from Doctors’ Unions. The statement warned that a lack of PPE “will result in patients becoming infected by health and social care workers. Consequently, and disgracefully, some patients and workers will needlessly die.”

The statement also demanded “that industry is immediately repurposed to produce appropriate PPE in adequate quantities to properly protect staff.

“At the very least this should be long sleeved gowns to cover all clothes, gloves, plastic overshoes, a mask — preferably FFP3, since coughs and sneezes are also aerosol generating events — and eye and face protection for all workers in the community. Critical care workers would need considerably greater protection.

“We demand to know where this equipment is being produced, in what quantities, and when and how it will be delivered to the front line.

“If the government will not give us this information we can only assume that the PPE is not available.”

Sourcing PPE

After weeks of pressure on the government to answer questions about the availability of PPE, Dominic Raab, deputising for the prime minister, admitted to national supply problems.

On Monday, he said there is “a competitive market out there” for PPE but did not address the concern that the UK did not join EU efforts to procure enough protective equipment.

On Tuesday, March 24 Downing Street said the country is “making our own efforts” to obtain PPE, and the UK has not joined EU procurement schemes as the UK is not in the EU.

But at the beginning of the week, The Guardian revealed that the UK had six opportunities to join EU procurement schemes for PPE between Sunday, February 2 and Wednesday, March 25.

Cllr Clive Jones, deputy leader of the Wokingham Liberal Democrats was frustrated with the national response.

“The real problem is not joining the EU schemes,” he said. “It’s not a decision in the best interests of the population, but an ideological decision. “The real problem is not joining the EU schemes,” he said. “It’s not a decision in the best interests of the population, but an ideological decision. “The real problem is not joining the EU schemes,” he said. “It’s not a decision in the best interests of the population, but an ideological decision.

“They don’t want to be a part of it because it’s run by the EU, instead they’ve taken a little England approach.

“And it’s so sad that people will have lost their lives because of this.”

Cllr Jones also condemned the slow response to procure enough PPE for staff across the nation.

“Only this weekend, our government placed orders for £100 million worth of PPE. But why has it taken so long? Why weren’t they doing this weeks ago and why weren’t they thinking about this back in January?

“I have a colleague in Hong Kong and we were talking this week about the situation in the UK. He couldn’t understand why it took so long to lockdown in the UK, they started restricting things in January.”

Schools fill the gap

Last week, Wokingham.Today reported that Leighton Park school had begun creating and distributing face shields to front line workers.

During this time, the school has established a network of 18 manufacturing partners and has provided 6,000 face shields to 79 organisations at the frontline of the Covid-19 response so far.

This includes eight hospitals and 18 GP surgeries. All of which has been made possible through public donations soaring over £17,000 to help buy appropriate materials.

Council buy more PPE

Last week, a concerned resident contacted Cllr Charles Margetts, executive member for health, wellbeing and adult services at WBC about the need to launch a public appeal to boost PPE stocks.

Cllr Margetts responded, explaining: “There is a nationwide shortage of PPE. Central government is working hard to try to keep local authorities supplied with PPE however it is flooded with demand.

“Wokingham Borough Council has also been sourcing PPE privately wherever possible to try to build up stocks. We have had to pay over and above normal prices to purchase stock but have done so, as we must keep our staff and our residents safe.

“The government has now raised the requirements for when PPE should be used. We currently get through around 27500 sets of gloves, aprons and masks a week.

“We also act as a provider of last resort to all the care homes and care providers in the borough. Last weekend we had to bail out two local care providers who had completely run out of PPE.

“The peak of the virus is expected to come in the next two weeks and therefore we made the decision to make the public appeal to boost our stocks to ensure we have enough provision — allowing for the very worst possible eventuality — to provide our staff with the equipment they need to do their jobs safely and with confidence.

“Even though we’ve not been able to get all the PPE we need from central government, we’ve had some success getting it directly from other sources as well as from our public appeal and we thank everyone who’s donated so far. It’s a dynamic situation but we’re tentatively confident we can get what we need as we move through this pandemic.

“We’ve raised this issue with our MPs as well as with central government, and will continue to ask for their help to improve the PPE supply for our staff, our care homes, and our care providers.”

Major public enquiry

Cllr Jones explained that once the pandemic has been dealt with, serious questions must be asked about the national response, and decisions made by politicians.

“My feeling is that when this is over and we’ve beaten it, there needs to be a Royal Commission to look at why we weren’t better prepared.

“In 2016 they had a practise run for something like this happening, and they don’t appear to have learnt the lessons or followed the guidance from four years ago.

“It needs to be done by the Royal Commission so that it is very independent of the government.

“We need to understand what went wrong, and what can we do to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

He explained that he fears there will be a wider-scale, more aggressive pandemic in the future that the country will not be prepared for, unless they learn from the mistakes made over the past months.