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Matt Hancock has not been able to guarantee hospitals will have enough protective gowns to get them through the coming weekend.
The health secretary said on Friday he would “love to be able to wave a magic wand” and have enough personal protective equipment (PPE) “fall from the sky in large quantities” but this was not possible due to a global shortage.
The government has been unable to say how much personal protective equipment is still lacking in the fight against coronavirus, as the number of NHS staff confirmed to have died of the illness continues to climb.
As of Thursday, 27 NHS staff are known to have died after contracting coronavirus.
Taking questions via video link from the Commons health and social care committee today, Hancock admitted the NHS and care service was “tight” on gowns - although 55,000 more were due to arrive today.
Asked if he was “confident” all UK hospitals would have enough gowns this weekend, Hancock said the government was doing “everything we possibly can” but it was a “challenge”.
Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative chair of the committee who preceded Hancock as health secretary, asked: “Are we going to be able to get gowns to everywhere that need them over this weekend?”
Hancock said “that is exactly what we are aiming to do” but was unable to offer a guarantee.
“I would love to be able to wave a magic wand and have PPE fall from the sky in large quantities and be able to answer your question about when shortages will be resolved,” he told MPs.
“But given that we have a global situation in which there is less PPE in the world than the world needs, obviously it’s going to be a huge pressure point.”
He added: “There’s nothing that I can say at this select committee that will take away the fact that we have a global challenge and we’re doing everything we can to resolve it to get that PPE to the front line.”
Today’s committee hearing, which lasted over two hours, came following reports that the head of an NHS trust in southern England has asked for the help of a British fashion company as he fears his staff will soon run out of hospital gowns.
Yesterday the government needed to be satisfied of five things before it would consider it safe to lift or adjust the current lockdown - which has been extended by at least three weeks.
They are:
- Protect the NHS’s ability to cope and be confident that the NHS is able to provide sufficient critical care across the UK
- A sustained and consistent fall in daily death rates to be confident the UK is beyond the peak
- Reliable data from Government scientific advisers showing rate of infection is decreasing to manageable levels across the board
- Confidence that testing capacity and personal protective equipment (PPE) are in hand with “supply able to meet future demand”
- Confidence that any adjustments to the current measures would not risk a second peak in infections.
Also giving evidence to the committee today, professor Anthony Costello, chair of global health at University College London, said the UK faces “further waves” of coronavirus and will probably have the highest death rate in Europe because the government was “too slow” to act.
The Department of Health and Social Care said the Covid-19 death toll in hospitals in the UK had reached 13,729 as of 5pm on Wednesday, up 861 on the figure the day before.