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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
David Conn

Department of Health writes off £9bn spent in England’s Covid PPE drive

England PPE DHSC
Clinical staff wear PPE on the Covid recovery ward at Royal Papworth hospital
The health department said it had to act quickly to buy ‘scarce resource amidst a global pandemic’. Photograph: Getty Images

Ministers spent almost £9bn on personal protective equipment that was either substandard, defective, past its use-by date or dramatically overpriced, according to figures released on Monday.

The Department of Health and Social Care paid £12bn while emergency-buying PPE for England in the year to 31 March 2021, its annual accounts show. Tonnes of items bought for £2.6bn were never usable by the NHS – this figure is now £2.7bn – and a further £670m worth of PPE was not usable at all in any healthcare setting.

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