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The Conservative Government expected pharmacists and other health professionals to procure their own personal protective equipment (PPE) during the Covid pandemic, according to the inquiry looking into its response to the crisis.

The risks UK healthcare workers on the frontline were exposed to as the disease spread were laid bare during the latest module of the inquiry which focused on procurement, including the controversial VIP lane for multi million-pound contracts awarded to companies who apparently had political connections to supply personal protective equipment (PPE).

The inquiry’s chair Baroness Hallett criticised the “vast” waste in procurement, which amounted to £9.9 billion of the £14.9 billion the Conservatives spent on PPE.

The inquiry heard pharmacists’ lives were put in jeopardy because of a lack of adequate PPE as the UK’s emergency stockpile ran low. The inquiry’s report said the Department of Health and Social Care was guilty of a “major failure in planning”.

“The spread of Covid-19 had a devastating impact beyond hospitals,” it said. “PPE was needed in a wide range of settings, especially in the social care sector, but the stockpile was not established for this purpose.

“During a pandemic, the social care sector and community healthcare providers, such as GPs and pharmacists, were expected by the Department of Health and Social Care to procure their own PPE.

“Given the size of the social care sector and the vulnerability of those in care requiring protection from the spread of disease, this was a major failure in planning.”

NPA: Pharmacy owners 'will be furious'

National Pharmacy Association (NPA) chief executive Henry Gregg said pharmacy owners “will be furious that at a time that the Government wasted billions of pounds on untried providers, they had to dip into their own pockets to protect their own staff”.

“We have been clear to the Covid inquiry that community pharmacy did not get the access to the PPE they needed at the start of the pandemic, despite being one of the only health care providers open through much of the pandemic and numerous warnings from the NPA and others,” he said.

“Pharmacy teams undoubtedly took significant risks, particularly during the early stages of the pandemic, to serve their patients. In some instances pharmacy teams were forced to use the same PPE for weeks on end. Tragically, some pharmacy staff died from the virus.

“The Government must learn the lessons from this inquiry and treat pharmacies as equal partners in the NHS, providing them with the same access to support in a timely manner.”

Royal College of Pharmacy president Tase Oputu said the “vast majority of frontline pharmacy teams” struggled to source PPE and “were unable to maintain safe social distancing either from staff or patients”.

“The Government and NHS repeatedly tried to provide reassurance that adequate supplies of PPE were available to the pharmacy profession and that the guidance was robust,” she said.

“This was not the reality experienced by our members and we called for urgent change to reflect the real-world situation. Pharmacies were one of the last places keeping their doors open to the public without an appointment and yet seemingly an afterthought when it came to sourcing PPE for staff.”

Statutory investigations into Medicine Box Ltd’s affairs

Last year, Labour said “failed pandemic-era PPE contracts cost the British taxpayer £1.4 billion” and has been trying to recover that public money.

One company, Medicine Box Limited, was given a £40 million PPE contract in April 2020, which it said was to supply four million pieces of protective coveralls. In February 2021, it told Independent Community Pharmacist (ICP) it fulfilled the contract.

Anran Hu, Chenyang Ma and Shu Yien Yeo, who are all registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council as pharmacists, were directors of Medicine Box Ltd at the time the contract was awarded.

A winding up petition for the company was heard in the insolvency and companies court in May this year and ICP understands Labour submitted a claim to the company’s liquidators Interpath Ltd to recover some or all of that money.

Kristina Kicks and Anthony Johnson-Magee from Interpath Ltd were appointed as joint liquidators of Medicine Box Limited on May 15 after the winding-up order was made by the high court.

Interpath Ltd told ICP: “The liquidation remains ongoing and the joint liquidators are undertaking their statutory investigations into the company's affairs. It would not be appropriate for the joint liquidators to comment further while those investigations remain ongoing.”