Department of Health and Social Care written question – answered at on 25 June 2020.
Christopher Chope
Conservative, Christchurch
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will place in the Library the background material on which the Deputy Chief Medical Officer announced on 20 March 2020 that the country has a perfectly adequate supply of personal protective equipment, PPE.
Jo Churchill
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care
The Deputy Chief Medical Officer’s comments on 20 March referred to specific problems with deliveries to National Health Service trusts, in line with Public Health England Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Guidance at that time. Further distribution problems arose soon after and at the daily COVID-19 press conference on 31 March the Deputy Chief Medical Officer apologised and acknowledged that soon after her comment on 20 March, problems with distribution had returned.
Systems set up to supply 226 NHS trusts have had to increase their operations in a matter of weeks to provide drops of critical equipment to 58,000 healthcare settings including general practitioners, pharmacies and social care providers. This required a huge scaling up of our logistics capability.
Yes1 person thinks so
No3 people think not
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