Tell me there will be people held to account!! Corruption!!

No one could have predicted the level of demand and the duration it would be required for.

Except they actually did. Feb 2016, just under 4 years before the covid-19 pandemic, the UK government ordered a pandemic planning exercise to highlight actions that needed to be taken to prepare the country for a respiratory (Coronabvirus) outbreak.

Observations from that exercise...

"Level and use of personal protective equipment (PPE) was central to the exercise dialogue and considered of crucial importance for front line staff. It was noted that the leaming from Ebola on infection control understanding, although improved, is still not embedded with staff. Clear instruction for PPE level and use was recommended. Access to sufficient levels of appropriate PPE was also considered and pandemic stockpiles were suggested as a means to ensure sufficient quantities were available."

Let’s not forget that Labour don’t exactly have a great record when it comes to waste either, £10bn on a failed NHS IT project? The government will waste money regardless of what flavour they are, no doubt we’ll see similar happen under Starmer.

This. Companies who had been supplying the NHS for decades were sidelined, unable to speak to anyone, unable to get anyone to place an order, while money was given to these grifters who knew nothing about PPE.
See also Dido Harding and the contact tracing.

No one could have predicted the level of demand and the duration it would be required for.

If it's not fit for an operating theatre it could be used elsewhere. At the very least it should have been distributed to care homes and anywhere else that uses PPE.

Me, I'd be happy to bulk buy boxes of nitrile gloves as I go through loads for work. They cost minimum £6 at B&M for a box of 100. Before covid I could get a box for £2.99.

Exactly, that's what I do. Why on earth would I throw expired medication, needles and syringes out of a car window ?

From the OP: The link is to the BBC website regarding useable PPE costing £1.4 billion being wasted, being incinerated. Not forgetting the further £100million in sorting the PPE.

Seems like a pretty good clue to me

It shouldn't have been such a panic though because we have National, regularly refreshed, stocks of PPE and other supplies for just this purpose in order to buy the time to replenish in an orderly fashion.

Only we didn't have that emergency stock...

Good old fashioned Civil Servants would have insisted on a proper procurement process being followed.

Sadly the media and public backlash of demanding the gmt find PPE asap meant corners were cut.

If the NHS on a standard day used a million items of PPE and during Covid that went up to 5 million a day, plus non-NHS also having increased demand, it was obviously not possible to increase production 4 fold unless short cuts were taken.

Which they didn't provide in a timely manner meaning millions got sick.
Then they overbought to give select companies (friends) billions of taxpayer money and leave it in a field in an area of beauty to cause environmental issues and be burnt. Not hard to see the multiple failings.

Did they do that here or am I missing a big pharmacy in a field?

you presumably want medical staff to be using fresh, sterile indate equipment and medication on you when you need treatment. What did you think happened to the outdated, no longer sterile stuff?

A little clue as to what the OP on about isn't too much to ask for. Not everyone clicks on a link based on a random and evasive outrage post.

Some tried and tested suppliers couldn't get a look in. That smacks of more than incompetence. If you screwed up at work and lost 100k you'd probably get disciplinary action. 100m? Oh well these things happen.

It actually gets worse...

"The Department for Health & Social Care (DHSC) lost 75% of the £12 billion it spent on personal protective equipment (PPE) in the first year of the pandemic to inflated prices and kit that did not meet requirements"

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/127/public-accounts-committee/news/171306/4-billion-of-unusable-ppe-bought-in-first-year-of-pandemic-will-be-burnt-to-generate-power/

Ignore the Government wonks OP. Of course YANBU.

Total incompetence and corruption.

I'm with you, OP. I can wrap my head around buying lots of PPE at the time (though cannot ever understand how they bought so much that was not up to standard - different topic). But surely, then the answer has been to not buy any more and use up the stockpiles we had while they were still in date?

£1.5bn is a hell of a lot of money to just waste like this. Look at any of the manifestos - they are all having to explain how they would fund their porposals, down to the millions and this government here has wasted much more than that on a single contract.

@TaraTories
You just lob it out of the car window when you go past a patch of land do you?

You can hand it in at a pharmacy.

I'm with you, OP. The sheer, stinking waste and incompetence of it all. Greed and immorality. Vile.

I dont see any corruption? What are you incensed about?

You just lob it out of the car window when you go past a patch of land do you?
They've dumped this after making sure their friends got rich from it. The amount spent here could be spent on NHS or SEN provision. No small potatoes.