The lives of health and care workers and their families were put at risk because the government failed to provide adequate protective equipment, MPs have said.
Social care providers were left “exposed” after hospitals were given priority for personal protective equipment, according to the public accounts committee’s report into PPE procurement in the first wave of the outbreak.
Between March and July last year, the Department of Health and Social Care provided NHS trusts with 1.9 billion items of PPE, the equivalent to 80 per cent of their estimated need. It supplied the adult social care sector with 331 million items, or 10 per cent of its requirements. At the same time about 25,000 patients were discharged to care homes from hospitals without being
