Name: Watchdog staff say they felt “leaned on” by UK government over PPE safety - BBC News
Uploaded: 2020-11-13T20:16:01.000Z
Duration: 3 min 51 s
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The BBC investigation has found that staff at the safety watchdog felt they were leaned on by the government to make factually incorrect statements about PPE for NHS staff treating coronavirus patients.

The government has been spending billions of pounds to replenish stocks of protective equipment.

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One company was given a contract to supply what are called isolation suits, but the firm was not given the correct safety specifications.

Our special correspondent Lucy Manning, reports.

As coronavirus peaked in hospitals and care homes, there was a rush to buy more protective equipment.

In the summer, we revealed how the government had wasted £150 million on masks the NHS couldn't use.

Now we reveal MAWR isolation suits that hadn't passed NHS safety tests on allegations of political pressure.

Toe hide that failure Pest Fix The small family run pest control firm won contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds to supply PP to the NHS.

The government is being taken to court to explain why it spent so much on the isolation suits from pest fix.

BBC News has seen emails that reveal our behind the scenes battle to prove the protective outfits were properly tested.

The HSC, the health and safety executive in June wrote that the isolation suits shouldn't be released to the NHS because they hadn't been properly tested to the right standards.

It appears the government ordered suits to be tested as if they were medical devices, but not for their intended use as PP.

After weeks of delays in August, the suits were eventually retested to a standard acceptable for use in hospitals.

But it appears as the legal action heated up so to the political pressure.

We have been drawn into the legalities, wrote one health and safety official in September, saying they've been asked to provide a statement that pest fixes products had the right safety documents.

This is not factually correct, the safety regulator wrote.

Documentation provided did not support the products there.

The following day, a health and safety executive official wrote that various colleagues in the DHS see are contacting those involved, asking for statements to the effect of the H S E assess the products and they were compliant, not factually correct, the official wrote again, Pest fix itself didn't want it known.

Its isolation suits were not in hospitals, but sitting in a warehouse writing in June.

We do not want it to be made public knowledge that pp from pest fix has not passed the Hey Chessie inspection.

In a statement, the company said Pesce Fix delivered these products to the Department of Health and Social Care on time and in compliance with their specifications and regulations.

After delivery there waas some delay while the product was re categorized as PPE and further testing was carried out.

The Department of Health and Social Care said.

We have been working tirelessly to deliver PP throughout the pandemic, with more than 4.7 billion items delivered so far on 32 billion items ordered.

All PPE products are quality assured on only distributed if they are safe to use.

The government has been challenged on money wasted in the rush to get PP.

 The problem is we still don't know the details of around £3 billion worth of spending because the government hasn't published the details yet. 