Government under fire over PPE for the NHS

The government is constantly under fire as supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) has almost run out in some hospitals.

Doctors have warned on Monday that they could refuse to treat coronavirus patients to protect their own lives as hospitals are set to run out of PPE today.

The NHS Confederation, the British Medical Association (BMA) and Royal Colleges are all backing their staff over the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE).

So far eighty frontline NHS staff have sadly died from coronavirus and frustration and anger is mounting against the government.

84 tonnes of PPE including 400,000 gowns, face masks, gloves and other vital equipment was due to have arrived on Sunday from Turkey, but still has not arrived in the UK.

Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, said there is “relatively low confidence” that 400,000 surgical gowns from Turkey would make their way into the country on Monday. The shipment was due to arrive on Sunday.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that over the past few weeks, some boxes of PPE contained the wrong items, with thousands of pieces missing.

He said, “So rather than being marched up to the top of the hill and being marched back down again, let’s just focus on what we know we can be certain of.

“Let’s not focus on individual consignments, let’s try and get as quickly as possible to a sustainable supply of these gowns.

“There’s no doubt that at the moment, we have now got trusts that have definitely got shortages of gowns.”

Culture secretary Oliver Dowden told BBC News: “We are very hopeful that later today that flight will take off and we will get those gowns.

“We are working very hard to resolve this, there have been challenges at the Turkish end.

“I don’t want to start making more and more promises but I understand that that flight will take off this afternoon and they will be delivered.”

A scientist has claimed that UK has “clearly passed the peak” as hospital coronavirus deaths has fallen during the “first wave” of the pandemic.

Oxford University’s Professor James Naismith, director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute research centre as the UK recorded 449 deaths on Monday.

Professor Naismith said, “Although we have clearly passed the peak of the announced hospital deaths in this first wave, 449 deaths can never be thought of as any other than very sad news.