Planning failures and other flaws meant doctors and nurses were forced to work without adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) in the pandemic, the Covid inquiry has said.
The fifth report from the inquiry found that healthcare staff were unable to properly protect themselves, or those in their care, from dangerous infections.
The UK entered the pandemic with its stockpile of masks, gowns and gloves in a “perilous state” with the country “simply not ready to compete” in the global race to secure new supplies.
Of the £14.9bn spent by the government on PPE, nearly two thirds – almost £10bn – was wasted, the report concluded.
The inquiry’s chair, Baroness Hallett, described the waste of taxpayers’ money as “vast” and said an overreliance on China to manufacture equipment left the UK “dangerously overexposed”.
When the cost of home testing kits and other equipment, such as ventilators, was included, the total amount spent by the government between January 2020 and June 2022 exceeded £42bn, the inquiry found.
The UK’s emergency stockpile of PPE, meant to last at least 15 weeks before being replenished, was running out by the end of March 2020 as demand from hospitals soared.