‘NHS GOT ROTTING PPE’
MEDIC TELLS OF GOWNS COVERED IN INSECTS AND PERISHED MASKS GIVEN TO STAFF ON THE FRONT LINE
FRONT-LINE NHS staff were given masks with ‘rotten’ elastic and personal protective equipment (PPE) that had already expired, MPs have heard.
Dr Emily McWhirter recalled opening a box of gowns where ‘a load of insects crept out of them’ when giving examples of difficulties around equipment for healthcare workers.
Members of the Commons public accounts committee gasped when she said expiry dates had been covered up on items of protective equipment delivered to her hospital.
Dr McWhirter said, normally within the NHS, ‘ giving expired equipment, using expired equipment or giving an expired drug, is tantamount to a significant risk’. She added: ‘It’s an error for nurses and all of a sudden we’re saying to them it’s okay for you to use expired stock for yourselves.’
She added: ‘It really undermined the kind of safety we try to promote.’
The committee, which has launched an inquiry into the procurement and supply of PPE, heard evidence from healthcare witnesses yesterday. Dr McWhirter, who was director of nursing at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability in Putney, south-west London, raised concerns about masks where the elastic was ‘rotten’ and broke when they were used.
‘You couldn’t use them, they didn’t create any sort of seal,’ she said. ‘So whilst some stock did come through, some of it was of poor quality and created another layer of complexity for staff to understand why they should be using out of date products.’
Dr McWhirter, who said her hospital used the NHS supply chain for PPE, told MPs no guidance had been given on whether expired items of equipment were still working and effective.
Matt Hancock refused to apologise yesterday, telling Metro there was ‘never a national outage of PPE’.
He added: ‘There was a massive effort involving a huge number of people including the RCN to ensure we could get the PPE supplies we needed.
‘That doesn’t mean it wasn’t difficult at times and there were undoubtedly challenges, but we had to move heaven and earth to deliver the amount of PPE that we did.’