Getting rid of useless medical gear ordered during the pandemic is costing us £107,500 a day.
Taxpayers face a £29million bill over nine months to destroy duff personal protective equipment. The cash could pay for 2,678 heart bypasses or 1,271 more nurses.
Millions of sub-standard PPE items were ordered in haste – including masks, gloves and aprons – and the Department of Health is expected to pay £28.9m to ditch them from April 6 to December 31.
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PA)
That is on top of £42m spent last year. Details emerged in a Freedom of Information request by Labour’s Siobhain McDonagh, MP for Mitcham and Morden. She said: “It’s a shocking waste. We are still paying the cost of a Tory government. I’m just thankful we have a General Election and the chance of a fresh start.”
More than seven billion units of PPE bought for medical staff were deemed unfit for the NHS and 1.2 billion items unfit for any setting.
Health chiefs are still paying millions to store it and are trying to cut that cost by disposing of it – with commercial waste firms paid to dispose of 15,000 pallets a month.
A Public Accounts Committee report found the Department of Health lost 75% of the £12billion it spent on PPE in the first year of the pandemic to inflated prices and kit that did not meet requirements.
Its chairwoman, Labour MP Dame Meg Hillier, said: “The story of PPE purchasing is perhaps the most shameful episode of the UK government response to the pandemic.
A Department of Health source said it could not comment due to rules now an election has been called.