Some 25 000 patients were discharged to care homes from hospitals, some without being tested for covid-19, contributing significantly to deaths in care homes in the first wave.

The decision to prioritise hospitals meant that social care providers were left exposed by the lack of PPE, the report said. A third of Black and Asian doctors reported experiencing PPE shortages, compared with 14% of white doctors. The committee accused the Department of Health and Social Care of knowing too little about the experience of frontline staff, particularly those from ethnic minorities. Surveys by staff representative organisations found that at least 30% of care workers, doctors, and nurses reported having insufficient PPE, even in high risk situations. The committee heard “compelling evidence from organisations representing frontline workers that stocks ran perilously low, single use items were reused, some was not fit for purpose-including reports of expired, substandard, deficient or even insect-infected supplies-and staff were in fear that they would run out.” The report highlighted “the appalling situation of staff having to care for people with covid-19 or suspected covid-19 without sufficient PPE to protect themselves from infection.” But the “inadequate” pandemic plan left frontline workers “risking their own lives to provide treatment and care,” the MPs’ report said. In a hard hitting report the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee painted a picture of an emergency scramble for PPE in which government contacts were handed contracts through a special channel without tender.

The UK government wasted hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on poor quality and unusable personal protective equipment (PPE) while leaving frontline workers insufficiently protected from covid-19, the parliamentary public spending watchdog has concluded.

Watchdog government