Lord Kamall believes much of the personal protective equipment could go to charities or be sold. The health minister said Syria will be handed “lots of latex gloves” and other equipment could be tested to see if its life can be extended. Department for Health and Social Care documents show huge amounts of money was wasted on useless equipment. Millions has also been spent getting out of contracts or storing PPE at ports.
According to the 2020/21 accounts, £673million worth of kit was totally unusable and £750million was spent on items not used before their expiry date.
However, the DHCS thinks nearly £2.6billion of the wasted £8.7billion stock can be reused.
Lord Kamall told the House of Lords: “Some may be deemed to be out of date but indeed, after scientific analysis, it may be then reclassified as usable.”
He insisted earlier that the £8.7billion PPE inventory had been “written down, not written off” and added: “The accounts make clear only three percent of the items purchased were not fit for any use.”
But Labour’s Lord Wood demanded an investigation, saying the losses were “enough to build more than a dozen new hospitals”. He said: “Apparently, ministers can now not locate a further £3.6billion in supplies and a further £1.2billion is again being written down on advanced years for this year.”
