Brussels hit out at claims the UK had missed out on a joint bid across the EU for ventilators due to an email mix-up.
The European Commission denied “initial communication problem” meant that Britain missed out.
Business minister Alok Sharma repeated claims the UK government did not join the EU’s ventilator scheme because it didn’t get the email.
It came after Number 10 was forced to deny the government was putting Brexit ahead of British lives after they said they hadn’t joined the scheme because the UK had left the EU.
Later they insisted that the email from the bloc had gone to the wrong address.
Mr Sharma said “there was an issue in terms of communication so the tendering process had already started” and he suggested the UK could have joined saying “We would have had to look and see the precise details of that.”
The EU insist the UK was fully briefed on the joint procurement plans which are designed to allow the states to order at scale and cheaply.
They have been publicly highlighted by commission president Ursula von der Leyen and other senior Brussels officials in recent weeks.
Ms von der Leyen said this week that the first call for tender, which covered protective equipment and brought together 25 countries, had led to “concrete offers of considerable scale on shortest notice”.
“This is EU solidarity in action. It shows that being part of the union pays off,” she said.
And Health Secretary Matt Hancock admitted last week that he was aware of the project, and claimed Britain was involved.
Appearing on BBC Question Time on Thursday March 19, Mr Hancock said: "We are invited to be part of that."
He added: "We engaged with that process today. It's not clear actually how much of that, er, how many more ventilators we'll get through that process - so frankly we're just getting on with it, buying them from around the world.
Buying them from the UK producers and turning other companies - for instance Formula One have said they will get their factories that normally create cars, and work with their brilliant engineers to create ventilators."
Number 10 said Prime Minister Boris Johnson had spoken to ventilator manufacturers this afternoon about scaling up production capacity.
A spokesman said: "Yesterday, the Prime Minister spoke to a dozen of the companies involved to thank them for all their work so far and to discuss ways that the Government could support them to build ventilators more quickly and in greater quantities for the frontline in the coming weeks."
The firms named by Number 10 included High Value Manufacturing Catapult, Meggitt, Ford, GKN Aerospace, Babcock, Plexus, Siemens PLC & Siemens Healthineers, McLaren, Rolls Royce, Airbus, Renault F1, PA Consulting, Renishaw, and GE Healthcare Systems.
Number 10 said the government was working with "many other UK manufacturers to build, design and develop new effective, safe and easy-to-build ventilators."
