Picture copyright Getty Photographs
Picture copyright
Getty Photographs
There may be “comparatively low confidence” a delayed supply of 400,000 protecting robes will arrive on Monday, a senior NHS determine has stated.
The consignment had been anticipated to reach from Turkey on Sunday.
Chris Hopson, chief government of NHS Suppliers, advised the BBC there was “little doubt” some hospital trusts already had shortages of the robes, which shield these treating coronavirus sufferers.
A minister stated the Turkish flight was anticipated to depart on Monday afternoon.
Tradition Secretary Oliver Dowden stated the federal government was “working very laborious” to resolve the problem however added there had been “challenges on the Turkish finish”.
“I do not wish to begin making increasingly more guarantees however I perceive that flight will take off this afternoon and people [gowns] can be delivered,” he advised BBC Breakfast.
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Mr Hopson, whose organisation represents healthcare trusts throughout England, stated if the delayed consignment from Turkey did arrive on Monday it could “most likely arrive very late on within the day”.
“It simply illustrates that we must be cautious about specializing in particular person consignments,” he advised BBC Radio 4’s Immediately programme.
“Bitter expertise over the previous few weeks has proven till a consignment of robes has really landed – that the packing containers have been checked and the tools’s been examined – the NHS merely cannot rely on the robes being out there on the entrance line.”
Mr Hopson gave the instance of an anticipated consignment of 200,000 robes from China which really solely contained 20,000 robes when it arrived final week.
“We all know that with different orders, when the packing containers had been opened up and it stated on the skin ‘robes’, if you opened it up, they had been really masks,” he stated.
“However I suppose the query we might want to ask when all that is over is, really, was the pandemic inventory reserve that was meant to tide us over appropriately configured?”