Plea for protection

British officials said to be checking contents, as doctors warn supplies are about to be exhausted

Meenal Viz, a doctor who is pregnant, protests outside Downing Street about the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) for NHS workers. The shortage of PPE is causing growing anger among front-line staff at risk of catching coronavirus.

A FLIGHT carrying personal protective equipment, which would keep the NHS from running out of vital surgical gowns, has been delayed in Turkey. The 84-ton shipment, including 400,000 gowns, was due to arrive in the UK yesterday afternoon. But government sources said it was held up for British officials to check the contents.

Front-line staff had warned that equipment such as gowns, masks, gloves and eye protectors were likely to run out in some hospitals before the end of the weekend. It is understood the supplies from Turkey will, on their own, be sufficient to keep the NHS going for only three days.

Leading the Downing Street press conference last night, Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, said he hoped the flight would arrive today. “Across the globe, people are trying to get the same items of PPE from quite a limited number of suppliers,” he added.

The Government’s approach has attracted severe criticism. Yesterday, it emerged that in February UK officials authorised the shipment of 266,000 items of PPE to China, including 35,000 gowns.

Hospital leaders attacked the Government’s performance on PPE following the delayed shipment. Niall

Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said “this makes a difficult situation worse”, adding: “It would have been better had the Government not made the announcement in the first place. We know shipments in this supply chain are unreliable, and even when they do arrive, are not always what is expected.

“In future, the NHS will expect announcements when supplies have arrived, not promises about what may or may not be delivered.”

He said it is likely some hospitals will now run out of gowns, but added:

“Everything that can be done will be done to protect patients and staff. There was already a loss of confidence and real anxiety across the NHS and care system around PPE supply – this will have been further eroded by what has happened this weekend.”

The British Medical Association said half its members were suffering burnout, depression or anxiety, caused in part by fear of catching the virus due to shortages of protective equipment.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, the BMA chairman, said: “The announcement that the expected arrival of PPE from Turkey

has been delayed for an indefinite time is extremely concerning.”

He added that the BMA had written to the Government two weeks ago calling for a massive increase in the manufacturing of protective equipment, but, having supplied the name of 70 potential contacts, had “hit a brick wall”.

Dr Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer for England, stressed that overseas shipments were unreliable. A report published by NHS Providers complained of erratic delivery of surgical gowns from China with “instances of stock being mislabelled”.