---

Government Refused To Stockpile PPE For NHS Staff On Grounds Of Cost

A report out today in The Guardian newspaper, makes it clear that the existing difficulties over providing NHS workers with the appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) could have been avoided several years ago; had the Dept of Health not rejected high-level medical advice about providing NHS staff with certain protective equipment during an influenza pandemic on the grounds of cost!

Many believe ad this been done, the lives of NHS nurses and doctors would not have been put at risk, and the current situation in NHS hospitals of make-shift PPE being made by clinical staff themselves in some NHS hospitals and were none exists in most cases; would have been avoided.

The Guardian exclusive newspaper article reads:

Documents show that officials working under former health secretary Jeremy Hunt told medical advisers three years ago to “reconsider” a formal recommendation that eye protection should be provided to all healthcare professionals who have close contact with pandemic influenza patients.

The expert advice was watered down after an “economic assessment” found a medical recommendation about providing visors or safety glasses to all hospital, ambulance and social care staff who have close contact with pandemic influenza patients would “substantially increase” the costs of stockpiling.

The documents may help explain a devastating shortage of protective gear in the NHS that is hampering efforts by medical staff to manage the Covid-19 virus pandemic.

In 2014, the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threat Advisory Group (Nervtag, an independent advisory committee was created to advise the government on pandemic influenza and new virus threats to the UK. The advisory group made a series of “formal recommendations” to the then Department of Health in March 2016, which had been compiled by a subgroup of senior NHS clinicians and scientists, and agreed by the wider committee.

The advise was quite clear - “providing eye protection for all hospital, community, ambulance and social care staff who have close contact with pandemic influenza patients.”

The Guardian article gives further details:

'However, according to minutes of a Nervtag meeting in June 2017, a health department official told the advisers to reconsider their advice as information had emerged about “the very large incremental cost of adding in eye protection.”

A minute from the meeting stated that “a subsequent internal DH health economic assessment has revealed that following these recommendations would substantially increase the cost of the PPE component of the pandemic stockpile four-to six-fold, with a very low likelihood of cost-benefit based on standard thresholds.”

The department asked Nervtag “to clarify the detail of their advice in light of the costings, and reconsider its recommendations against the strength of the scientific evidence of the ocular route as a source of infection, and the likely incremental cost-recommendations”.

The advisory committee then changed its official advice. The recommendation over protective eyewear was rewritten so that it instead told the department to buy enough eye protection for “exceptional usage” in higher-risk circumstances and when used with respirator masks during aerosol generating procedures.'

Click the pic to read the full article.

Source: The Guardian

 

 

Designed, Hosted and Maintained by Union Safety Services