Covid: ITV News reveals £8.7 billion loss on personal protective equipment in government accounts

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Buried on page 199 of the Department of Health and Social Care’s annual report published yesterday is the shocking £8.7 billion – £8.7 billion loss! On £12.1 billion of personal protective equipment (PPE) purchased in 2020/21.

Think about how this money will be distributed in hospitals. Certainly there should be a statement from Sajid Javid to Parliament on this.

Here is an excerpt from the Dubai Center for Safety and Security’s annual report: “The Department estimates that there was a loss in value of £8.7 billion of the £12.1 billion of PPE purchased in 2020-2021.”

The decrease relates to

£0.67 billion – ‘Personal protective equipment that cannot be used, for example because it is faulty’.

£2.6 billion – “PPE is not suitable for use in the health and social care sector, but the Department considers it suitable for other uses (although these other potential uses are not yet confirmed).”

£0.75 billion – ‘Personal protective equipment in excess of the amount ultimately required.’

£4.7 billion – “Adjustment to the year-end valuation of PPE as the market price of equivalent PPE at the end of the year is lower than the original purchase price.”

In other words, the Department of Homeland Security overpaid the odds for more PPE than was needed, and tons of it was unfit for purpose. Jaw dropper, even for the times your jaw drops.

On page 200 of the DHSC Annual Report, another troubling admission is that the department has not “effectively re-established [financial] Controls across the board “after ‘adapting'” procurement and inventory management systems at the start of the pandemic.

It says these changes “contributed to a significant loss of taxpayer value” and left management “at risk of fraud”.

It’s getting worse for the Department of Health and Social Care.

The Chief Auditor of the Public Sector, Garrett Davis, refused to give a clean bill of health to the Department’s 2020/21 accounts.

He ‘qualified’ the accounts (in terms) because ‘£1.3 billion of Department spending on Covid-19 was spent either without the necessary Treasury approvals or in violation of terms set forth by Her Majesty’s Treasury.

Davies also rated his regular opinion due to insufficient evidence to show that management spending, particularly on Covid-19 purchases, was not subject to a material level of fraud.”

‘A staggering sum’ – see Robert Peston’s assessment of government losses:

It’s basically saying the department failed a aptitude test.

Findings that the department may have been subject to “material” fraud and breach of Treasury terms are binding.

These failures occurred when Matt Hancock was Secretary of Health. He would have been pressured to take responsibility and quit if he was still there. There is supposed to be an internal DHSC investigation into all of this.

Officials and ministers may be seriously wrong.

To avoid suspicion, the National Audit Office disclosed the £8.7 billion in PPE losses disclosed above.

I must of course point out that the DHSC was under a lot of pressure at the start of the crisis. This pressure was greater in part due to years of austerity, as well as a failure to prepare for the crisis and build resilience in the system.

However, some of his chaotic purchases of personal protective equipment may be understandable and perhaps tolerated, due to the dire need to make up for the shortage of personal protective equipment to protect health and care workers.

In response, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “Providing these vital items has helped keep the NHS open in a time of national crisis to provide world-class service to the public. We are seeking to recover costs from suppliers where possible.”

Labor shadow health minister Wes Streeting said: “This is an appalling and unjustified level of waste that could have been better used in hospitals and nursing homes that are understaffed and overburdened.

“Taxpayers’ money has been poured down the drain at a time when a record 6 million people were on NHS waiting lists.”

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