A vital shipment of protective medical equipment, including gowns, has been delayed en route from Turkey and will not arrive in the UK on Sunday as planned, despite government assurances that it would do.
The 84-tonne consignment of personal protective equipment (PPE) was expected to include 400,000 gowns, which are in particular shortage now.
It was understood that the shipment would not now arrive on Sunday, although it was not clear why. At the government’s daily coronavirus press conference on Saturday, Robert Jenrick, the housing, communities and local government secretary, said it was due to arrive in the next 24 hours.
But speaking on Sunday, Michael Gove, the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, declined to say he could guarantee sufficient continuing supplies of PPE.
Asked whether he could, he told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday show only that it was “the first priority of government” to do so.
Gove added: “It is the case that there is a consignment of personal protection equipment that’s arriving from Turkey, which contains tens of thousands of gowns. It’s also the case that we have a deal with China in order to bring in, in due course, some 25m gowns over to the United Kingdom in order to make sure that people are kept safe.”
Gowns were, he said, an “area at the moment where there is the greatest need”.
Asked about the delayed shipment from Turkey, the Department for Health and Social Care referred queries to the Foreign Office, which was contacted for comment.
On Friday the Guardian revealed that such was the gown shortage, Public Health England guidance had been revised to ask NHS doctors and nurses to work without protective full-length gowns if these ran out.
The earlier guidance stipulated the use of full-length waterproof surgical gowns, designed to stop coronavirus droplets getting into someone’s mouth or nose, for all high-risk hospital procedures.
The new advice instead suggests the use of a flimsy plastic apron with coveralls if gowns run out.
On Saturday, unions and professional bodies said that NHS staff may refuse to work if there was not enough PPE to ensure their safety.
