Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
NHS trusts spent vast sums with unusual and often previously unproven suppliers at the height of the coronavirus outbreak as shortfalls in Britain’s PPE supply system left them in a desperate race to keep staff and patients safe, i can reveal.
An investigation by i established a catalogue of extraordinary spending as hospitals flooded with Covid-19 patients grappled with finding necessities from gowns to hotel rooms.
Financial records seen by i show how one ambulance trust had to dispatch its own vehicles to criss-cross the country to secure sufficient supplies, including spending £270,000 on hand sanitiser and visors bought from a menswear store in a Manchester suburb whose normal line of business is selling denim. Among the ad hoc PPE suppliers to other trusts identified from invoices are a luxury travel firm, a costume jewellery company, an artisan gin distiller and a chain of coffee outlets.
inews.co.uk
An investigation by i established a catalogue of extraordinary spending as hospitals flooded with Covid-19 patients grappled with finding necessities from gowns to hotel rooms.
Financial records seen by i show how one ambulance trust had to dispatch its own vehicles to criss-cross the country to secure sufficient supplies, including spending £270,000 on hand sanitiser and visors bought from a menswear store in a Manchester suburb whose normal line of business is selling denim. Among the ad hoc PPE suppliers to other trusts identified from invoices are a luxury travel firm, a costume jewellery company, an artisan gin distiller and a chain of coffee outlets.
Desperate NHS trusts' race to secure lifesaving PPE from unproven suppliers revealed
Analysis of NHS financial records shows how dozens of trusts facing PPE shortages resorted to extraordinary measures to keep staff and patients safe
inews.co.uk
