Covid: UK spent £569m on 20,900 ventilators but most remain unused | The Guardian - Denis Campbell:
September 30, 2020 - "The [United Kingdom] government spent £569m [$973 million CDN] buying 20,900 ventilators to keep people alive during the Covid-19 pandemic but lack of demand means NHS hospitals have used just a few of them. All but 2,150 [10.3%] of the machines it bought are still being held in a Ministry of Defence warehouse in case they are needed in the coming second wave of the disease.
"That is the conclusion of a National Audit Office (NAO) investigation into the costs of ministers’ scramble to buy tens of thousands of mechanical ventilators in March and what it achieved. Whitehall’s spending watchdog found that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and Cabinet Office paid a lot more than usual for the devices but were right to do so given the threat to life....
"The DHSC tried to source most of the extra devices it was seeking from China. However, intense global demand meant it had to pay suppliers upfront, but without any assurance the ventilators would be high quality. In one case it spent £2.2m on 750 transport ventilators, which ended up not being used when doctors said they were unsuitable for patients in intensive care.
"Despite both departments vigorously pursuing more of the machines from mid-March, they had only acquired 1,800 extra by the time the peak of the pandemic struck in mid-April. And they missed the government target to increase the NHS’s stock of ventilators from only 7,400 at the start of the crisis to 18,000 by the end of April and 30,000 by the end of August.
"However, no patient with Covid who needed to undergo mechanical ventilation had been left without one. On 14 April, the day Covid admissions peaked in English hospitals, the NHS in England had 6,818 beds available with ventilators. However, just 2,849 were occupied by Covid patients, another 1,031 were taken by those with other ailments and the other 2,938 were empty....
"The DHSC spent £292m in total, including £244m (excluding VAT) buying 11,100 ventilators and £45m on other oxygen therapy devices.... The Cabinet Office spent £277m. However, £113m [$193 CDN] of that went on 'design costs, components and factory capacity for ventilators it did not buy'....
"Meg Hillier, the MP who chairs the Commons public accounts committee, said:... 'We were lucky the worst-case scenario didn’t come to pass before the extra ventilators had arrived. However, the NHS is now much better prepared for whatever happens next. DHSC and the Cabinet Office ... have set a benchmark for procurement during the pandemic.'"
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