UNION HITS BACK AFTER MINISTER CALLS PPE ‘PRECIOUS RESOURCE’
Anger after Health Secretary’s statement
N
O PROTECTIVE equipment is more important than the lives of healthcare workers, a nursing union has said, after ministers said it should be treated as a “precious resource”.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock had said there is enough personal protective equipment (PPE) to go round if it is used in line with official guidance, and his goal is that “everyone” working in a critical role gets what they need.
But the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) dismissed any suggestions that healthcare staff were “abusing or overusing” PPE.
RCN general secretary Dame Donna Kinnair told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday that no PPE was “more precious a resource than a healthcare worker’s life, a nurse’s life, a doctor’s life”.
Speaking later on BBC Breakfast Dame Donna said that every day she was hearing from nurses saying they did not have enough protective equipment.
Dame Donna added: “I take offence actually that we are saying that healthcare workers are abusing or overusing PPE.
“I think what we know is, we don’t have enough supply and not enough regular supply of PPE.
“This is the number one priority nurses are bringing to my attention, that they do not have adequate supply of protective equipment.”
The BMA medical union warned on Friday that PPE supplies in London and Yorkshire are at “dangerously low levels”.
New Labour leader Keir Starmer said on social media that it was “insulting” to imply frontline staff were wasting PPE.
He added: “It is quite frankly insulting to imply frontline staff are wasting PPE.
“There are horrific stories of NHS staff and care workers not having the equipment they need to keep them safe.
“The Government must act to ensure supplies are delivered.”
Yesterday Home Secretary Priti Patel has said she was sorry if anyone felt there had been failings over the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) for health workers in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
Ms Patel, fielding questions at a Downing Street briefing on Saturday, said she was “sorry” if people felt there had been failings regarding the supply of PPE.
After being asked twice if she would apologise to NHS staff and their families over the lack of “necessary PPE”, Ms Patel said: “I’m sorry if people feel that there have been failings. I will be very, very clear about that. But at the same time, we are in an unprecedented global health pandemic right now.
“It is inevitable that the demand and the pressures on PPE and demand for PPE are going to be exponential. They are going to be incredibly high.
“And of course we are trying to address that as a Government.”
Mr Hancock acknowledged distributing masks, gloves, aprons and hand sanitiser to frontline workers is requiring a “Herculean logistical effort”.
He told BBC Breakfast on Saturday it was important that healthcare workers use the “right amount” of protective equipment.
He added: “I am not impugning anyone who works for the NHS and I think they do an amazing job.
“But what I am reiterating, stressing, is the importance to use the right amount of PPE both to have enough and also to use it as the precious resource that it is.”
On Friday Mr Hancock said every NHS hospital has received a delivery of critical PPE once every 72 hours,