‘It is,” says one contributor to The Covid Contracts: Follow the Money, “probably the biggest misspending scandal in the UK of all time.” When a documentary tries to bring an underreported outrage to a wider audience, it helps to have attention-grabbing quotes like that. But as the evidence about the Covid “VIP lane” affair is collated by this cool, clear investigation, “biggest misspending scandal of all time” starts to look like an understatement.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit the UK in the early months of 2020, doctors and nurses urgently required large amounts of personal protective equipment (PPE): the disposable masks, goggles and gowns that would allow them to treat an infectious disease without contracting it themselves. Our impoverished NHS did not own adequate stockpiles of PPE, so the Conservative government of the day set about buying it in. It appealed for companies that were not part of the regular NHS supply chain to pitch their services.
