£4bn of NHS Covid PPE to be burned as it is unusable, says committee report

theguardian.com:

Protective clothing worth £4bn bought early in the pandemic to stop NHS staff being infected with Covid is to be burned because it is unusable, a report has revealed.

The imminent destruction of so many items and waste of public money is disclosed in a report by the Commons public accounts committee (PAC) that is scathing of the DHSC’s strategy when the Covid pandemic struck in 2020.

The PAC, which oversees spending by Whitehall departments, found that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has £4bn of PPE in storage which cannot be used by frontline workers because it is substandard.

In their report out on Friday, the cross-party group of MPs said: “The department has no clear disposal strategy for this excess PPE but told us that it plans to burn significant volumes and will aim to generate power from this.”

The DHSC has so much unneeded PPE that it has appointed two commercial waste firms to help it dispose of 15,000 pallets a month “via a combination of recycling and burning to generate power”.

Opposition parties have seized on the PAC’s findings. “This absolutely damning report exposes the shameful and toxic waste of Boris Johnson’s Conservatives. Ministers have been carelessly burning taxpayers’ money by the billion as unusable gowns, goggles and gloves literally go up in smoke,” said Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader.

Daisy Cooper, the Liberal Democrats’ health spokesperson, said: “Hard-working families, who are struggling to make ends meet, will be outraged that the Conservatives have squandered their money for no other reason than their sheer incompetence.”

The revelations arethe latest evidence about the government’s chaotic rush to acquire gloves, masks and gowns in the early months of the pandemic amid