£1.4bn-worth of personal protective equipment (PPE) bought by the UK government in a single deal has been destroyed or written off, marking a significant instance of waste during the Covid pandemic.

The data revealed that 1.57 billion items supplied by Full Support Healthcare will never be used. This was part of a £1.78bn contract made in April 2020, during the peak of the pandemic, to provide masks, aprons, eye protectors, and respirators. This deal was the government's largest PPE order, representing 13% of its total PPE expenditure.

Of the 2.02 billion items from the deal, only 232 million were distributed to the NHS or other care settings. Approximately 749 million items have already been destroyed, and another 825 million are set to be disposed of or recycled.

Tom Swarbrick is joined by Peter Smith, a former government procurement advisor, to analyse the significance of this story.

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