Why is there a lack of PPE? PPE and Public Sector Contracts.

Journalists have been having fun at the government's expense on the PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) issue but what is actually happening? Why haven't UK manufacturers been engaged to cope with the shortfall? The answer seems to lie with NHS purchasing.

The NHS has demonstrated true public sector flair by reducing its supplier base for PPE to a single supplier for surgical gowns under it's NCP Programme.

It awarded the supply of surgical gowns to IMS Euro Ltd which is a wholesaler that obtains products globally. Prior to this deal eleven other suppliers and manufacturers all provided product.

It awarded most of the supply of surgical gloves to the Malaysian company Supermax, 20% of the contract to Malaysian Semperit and 20% to the Singaporean company Unigloves.

There has been no attempt to ensure that the UK has a strategic, domestic supply of PPE and no attempt to foster the UK healthcare industry. This is at best dubious behaviour by a national monopoly consumer and reflects the poor management standards in the NHS.

Strategic industries should become an important issue now that the UK governs itself. It is shocking that even with the current emergency a high proportion of PPE is being sourced preferentially from China and other overseas sources (despite the fact that there is a 50/50 chance of trade reprisals against China). The UK mainly supplies bags and detergent. The NHS has deliberately run down the UK capability in healthcare, what could have been a national asset for UK industry of a state run NHS has been squandered.

Poor management in the NHS is also apparent in community care.

NHS Contracts are cumbersome and complete in the extreme. However, the NHS has caught itself out with the rigour of its contracts. As an example, in the 80 page supplementary part of NHS STANDARD COMMUNITY SERVICES CONTRACT (MULTILATERAL) (module C of a 4 part contract) it states that:

42.7 In the event of a Major Incident the Commissioners shall provide the Provider with such further assistance as may reasonably be required by the Provider to deal with the Major Incident

Contracted community service providers are waiting for NHS Management to comply.

Also see Saving the NHS for more on NHS Management.
and see Army appalled at way NHS handled ppe crisis

21/4/2020

Comments

The Falklands have always been Argentine - Las Malvinas son Argentinas

"The Falklands have always been Argentine" is taught to every Argentine child as a matter of faith. What was Argentina during the time when it "always" possessed Las Malvinas? In this article I will trace the history of Argentina in the context of its physical and political relationship with "Las Malvinas", the Falkland Islands. The Argentine claim to the Falkland Islands dates from a brief episode in 1831-32 so it is like Canada claiming the USA despite two centuries of separate development. This might sound like ancient history but Argentina has gone to war for this ancient claim so the following article is well worth reading. For a summary of the legal case see: Las Malvinas: The Legal Case Argentina traces its origins to Spanish South America when it was part of the Viceroyalty of the Rio del Plata. The Falklands lay off the Viceroyalty of Peru, controlled by the Captain General of Chile. In 1810 the Falklands were far from the geographical b...

Practical Idealism by Richard Nicolaus Coudenhove-Kalergi

Coudenhove-Kalergi was a pioneer of European integration. He was the founder and President for 49 years of the Paneuropean Union. His parents were Heinrich von Coudenhove-Kalergi, an Austro-Hungarian diplomat, and Mitsuko Aoyama, the daughter of an oil merchant, antiques-dealer, and huge landowner family in Tokyo. His "Pan-Europa" was published in 1923 and contained a membership form for the Pan-Europa movement. Coudenhove-Kalergi's movement held its first Congress in Vienna in 1926. In 1927 the French Prime Minister, Aristide Briand was elected honorary president. Personalities attending included: Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann and Sigmund Freud. Figures who later became central to founding the EU, such as Konrad Adenauer became members . His basic idea was that democracy was a transitional stage that leads to rule by a new aristocracy that is largely taken from the Jewish "master race" (Kalergi's terminology). His movement was reviled by Hitler and H...

The Roots of New Labour

This article was written in 2009 but is still useful to understand the motivation behind New Labour - from the global financial crisis through the over-regulated, surveillance society to the break up of the UK into nationalities. The past lives of Labour Ministers have long been sanitised and many biographies that include their shady communist and Marxist pasts are inaccessible or removed from the net. The truth about these guys is similar to discovering that leading Tories were members of the Nazi Party. If you are a British voter and do not think that this is important then I despair for British politics. Had these people taken jobs in industry their past might be forgotten and forgiven but they continued in left wing politics and even today boast of being "Stalinist" or International Socialist (or in Blair's case, Trotskyist ). Peter Mandelson (first Secretary of State and Labour Supremo): "Mr Mandelson was born into a Labour family - his grandfather wa...

Political Thoughts - the magazine

Search This Blog