Wasn't sure where (or if) to put this. But the level of waste (something which politicians love to hammer the NHS for) related to COVID is incomprehensible - if Government invested a fraction of the cost of this waste in research and care, thousands of lives would be improved.
"Nearly one in five units of PPE marked “do not supply” to the NHS by the Department of Health and Social Care:
Nearly one in five items of PPE the government bought during the pandemic are not fit for purpose and cannot be used by the NHS, it has been revealed – including 1.2 billion items that cannot be used at all.
As of December, almost 7 billion items of personal protective equipment bought for frontline services – 19.1% of the 36.4 billion items bought since February 2020 – had been marked “do not supply” to the NHS by the Department of Health and Social Care.
The number is more than three times the figure quoted last September, when health minister Lord Bethell admitted 1.9 billion items worth £2.8bn were in the “do not supply” category – 6.2% of the PPE bought up to that point.
DHSC has not placed a cash value on the latest figures. However, the department said in its annual report that it had written off £8.7bn worth of PPE in 2020-21 alone – including £673m spent on completely unusable items and £4.7bn lost to cost inflation."
my bold, more at link: Civil Service World
"Nearly one in five units of PPE marked “do not supply” to the NHS by the Department of Health and Social Care:
Nearly one in five items of PPE the government bought during the pandemic are not fit for purpose and cannot be used by the NHS, it has been revealed – including 1.2 billion items that cannot be used at all.
As of December, almost 7 billion items of personal protective equipment bought for frontline services – 19.1% of the 36.4 billion items bought since February 2020 – had been marked “do not supply” to the NHS by the Department of Health and Social Care.
The number is more than three times the figure quoted last September, when health minister Lord Bethell admitted 1.9 billion items worth £2.8bn were in the “do not supply” category – 6.2% of the PPE bought up to that point.
DHSC has not placed a cash value on the latest figures. However, the department said in its annual report that it had written off £8.7bn worth of PPE in 2020-21 alone – including £673m spent on completely unusable items and £4.7bn lost to cost inflation."
my bold, more at link: Civil Service World