Over £8.7BILLION lost on PPE in just one year by Department of Health bosses

DEPARTMENT of Health bosses incurred £8.7billion in losses on PPE last year, a report has found.

Whitehall chiefs wrote-off the “staggering” sum because protective equipment could not be used or dropped in value.

A report on the department’s finances for 2020 to 2021 said rushed spending led to “significant losses for the taxpayer”.

Jo Maugham, of the Good Law Project, said: “It is just staggering how wasteful the Government’s PPE buying was.”

An audit found £4.7billion was lost because the department stockpiled PPE and paid more than it was worth by the end of the year when prices dropped.

Another £2.6billion was spent on PPE that was not good enough for the NHS or care homes. Gareth Davies, of the National Audit Office, said Covid put the Department of Health under extraordinary pressure and it failed to control spending in an “overheated global market”.

The DoH said: “The supply of these vital items helped keep our NHS open at a moment of national crisis to deliver a world-class service to the public.”