The Covid inquiry has found that inadequate personal protective equipment (PPE) left NHS staff and patients exposed during the pandemic and that almost £10bn of public money was wasted in a chaotic procurement response. Baroness Hallett, the inquiry chair, described the scale of wasted spending as “vast”: £9.9bn of the £14.9bn the UK and devolved administrations spent on PPE was written off as unused or out of date.
The report says the country entered the pandemic with its stockpile of masks, gowns and gloves in a perilous state and was unprepared to compete internationally for new supplies. By the end of March 2020 the emergency stockpile — intended to last 15 weeks before replenishment — was running out as hospital demand surged. Only around a third of the masks in England’s stockpile were judged usable, and Scotland had no supplies of the higher-grade respirator masks used in hospitals. Care homes, GP surgeries and pharmacies were expected to source their own PPE, a move the inquiry calls a major planning failure.
When broader pandemic-related purchases such as home testing kits and ventilators are included, government spending between January 2020 and June 2022 exceeded £42bn. Additional write-offs included £157m for unused healthcare equipment and a further £143m related to the so-called ventilator challenge, where designs developed at speed never entered production. Devolved nations also faced losses: around £8m of equipment written off in Scotland, £18m in Wales, and some £43m of PPE in Northern Ireland at risk of expiring before use.
The inquiry judged it preferable to have bought too much PPE than too little, but concluded supply should have been more closely calibrated to demand and that contingency plans had never been adequately stress-tested. Officials and ministers were forced to improvise new procurement and distribution processes in a matter of days, producing unfair and costly outcomes.
A central criticism focused on the creation in April 2020 of a so-called “VIP lane” (officially the high priority lane), which fast-tracked contract offers that came with recommendations from ministers, MPs, peers or senior officials. The policy was intended to speed procurement in the face of urgent need, but the inquiry called it a misguided attempt at prioritisation that embedded unfairness in emergency buying and undermined public trust. Baroness Hallett said the high priority lane should not have been established and must not be repeated. At the same time, the inquiry did not find evidence of cronyism or corruption by ministers or officials in the final awarding of contracts.
Former cabinet office minister Michael Gove described corruption allegations as unfounded and said he accepted responsibility for honest mistakes. The inquiry also devoted substantial scrutiny to contracts involving PPE Medpro, a firm linked to businessman Doug Barrowman and Baroness Michelle Mone. Both have denied wrongdoing. Testimony from senior officials in that part of the inquiry was heard partly behind closed doors to avoid prejudicing an ongoing National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation; sections of the inquiry’s findings on PPE Medpro were omitted from the public report pending the conclusion of any criminal proceedings. The NCA says its investigation remains a priority.
Forty-eight witnesses gave oral evidence to the inquiry on this strand, including former health secretary Matt Hancock and Michael Gove. The inquiry’s recommendations include a radical overhaul of the emergency system for procuring and distributing PPE; creation of a domestic industry strategy that treats key healthcare equipment as a strategic national asset; and improvements to the condition and management of the national pandemic stockpile, held in a large warehouse in Merseyside.
A Downing Street spokeswoman said the report made for difficult reading and that the government is committed to learning the lessons of the inquiry. Ministers said they will carefully consider the recommendations and respond in due course.
The inquiry concludes that better planning, stress-testing of contingency arrangements, clearer national responsibility for providing PPE to all care settings, and a move to treat certain healthcare supplies as strategic assets would reduce waste, speed up procurement and better protect staff and patients in any future health emergency.
