PPE debacle should be sewn up on the home front

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/24/ppe-debacle-should-be-sewn-up-on-the-home-front

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Letters: John O’Driscoll says the UK has a dynamic garment industry and worldwide shortages cannot be blamed, while Fred Brook recalls a time when hospitals got what they needed and weavers got work and wages. Plus letters from John Paterson and Sarah James

As a hospital consultant who has three children working on the NHS frontline, two of whom contracted coronavirus, I find the continuing debacle over personal protective equipment shocking (Government misses out on 16m face masks for NHS in four weeks, 21 April). Thankfully they have both recovered and returned to work this week.

Now is the time for honesty, not reprehensible comments such as those of the health secretary regarding there being adequate PPE if used appropriately by staff. Firefighting the immediate problem is essential, but consideration of any form of phased exit from lockdown without a large stockpile of PPE would be criminal.

This country has a dynamic garment industry, and worldwide shortages cannot be blamed. The time required to assess the many companies that are coming forward with offers to help was mentioned at the ministerial briefing on Wednesday – it is far more urgent than that. Any company, not just those volunteering, that could adapt to the rapid manufacture of large quantities of PPE should be identified and their output requisitioned if necessary.

Best practice regarding levels of protection should also be sought: a good place to start would be the Covid-19 hospital in Naples, where the use of effective PPE meant not a single member of the medical teams was infected at the height of the outbreak.Dr John O’DriscollSale, Cheshire

• My mother was an Oldham cotton weaver, my father a cotton spinner. When I was growing up we often talked about the Great Depression. The mill Dad worked in teetered on the edge of closing, and often went on “short time” (a two- or three-day week). My mother’s place of work kept going. I asked Mum what she wove, and she replied “stuff for hospitals”. The hospitals got what they needed, and the weavers got the work and wages. I would like to see a similar arrangement operating today. Hospitals would get a regular supply, from our own mills. There would be certainty, with no searching of world markets. I am suggesting an integrated supply chain. Take back control. Let’s get weaving!Fred BrookRedburn, Northumberland

• The government’s response as to why it had not taken up the many reported offers from businesses to assist in the production of protective clothing was that it was concentrating on companies that could manufacture at scale. With its fondness for wartime metaphors, presumably this government would have told the soldiers at Dunkirk to ignore the small boat flotilla until a couple of big boats came along.John PatersonGlasgow

• Please can the government stop giving us macho but meaningless numbers regarding PPE that it is, or might be, acquiring: 70 million pieces of equipment means nothing. Far more useful would be to tell us that it has acquired a day’s worth, a week’s worth or, even better, a month’s worth for the NHS and/or care homes.Sarah JamesMonmouth, Monmouthshire

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