Government writes off £8.7bn of pandemic PPE

The government has written off £8.7bn it spent on protective equipment bought during the pandemic, accounts show.

The Department for Health and Social Care documents show items costing £673m were unusable, while £750m of equipment was not used before its expiry date.

The largest write-off - £4.7bn - was because the government paid more for it than it is currently worth, now that global supplies have recovered.

No 10 said the purchases were justified - with 97% of items suitable for use.

A further £2.6bn of equipment was judged to be unsuitable for use in the NHS, the 2020/21 accounts show, but the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) believes it could still be sold or given to charities.

At the start of the pandemic, countries around the world were clamouring for personal protective equipment (PPE), sending prices soaring.

No 10 said "we stand by the decision to purchase the items that we did", saying the approach was "justified" to get PPE to the front line. And the government was now able to "mitigate" similar problems in the future by "massively increasing our onshore-based PPE production".

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Source: BBC News, 1 February 2022