UK Covid inquiry says PPE failures left healthcare workers exposed

The UK Covid-19 Inquiry said frontline healthcare workers were left poorly protected because the state entered the pandemic with an unsafe PPE stockpile and a system too slow for emergency buying. Its Module 5 report, published on Tuesday, examined how PPE, ventilators, oxygen and testing kits were procured and distributed across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Baroness Heather Hallett’s inquiry said almost £10 billion of the £14.9 billion spent on PPE was wasted. It said the UK’s stockpile was in a “perilous state” before Covid struck, with too little vital equipment and large quantities of expired supplies, and concluded that government was “wholly unprepared” for the speed and scale of emergency procurement and distribution. The failure was not just financial: the report said the procurement breakdown left NHS staff unable to properly protect themselves or the patients in their care from dangerous infections.

The findings land against a long record of warnings about how pandemic purchasing was handled. The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee previously found that the Department’s rushed approach to PPE contracts sat outside the normal procurement route and produced many risky deals, with around £9 billion written off, including £4 billion of PPE that could not be used in the NHS. In June 2025, HM Treasury said failed pandemic-era PPE contracts had already cost taxpayers £1.4 billion, with more losses still unrecovered.

The inquiry’s earlier Module 3 report said the NHS “coped, but only just” and had come close to collapse. Nursing leaders had argued throughout the crisis that staff needed a direct role in PPE decisions, warning that poor guidance and unreliable supply put workers at risk. Rose Gallagher of the Royal College of Nursing said nurses had made “superhuman” efforts amid widespread shortages. The British Medical Association also pressed for stronger respiratory protection, though it said this latest report did not find conclusive evidence to support universal use of FFP3 respirators for healthcare staff.

The procurement failures now sit at the centre of a broader test for ministers and health chiefs: whether England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have actually fixed the weaknesses that turned emergency buying into waste on a historic scale. The inquiry said governments across the UK were due to respond to its recommendations within six months of publication, setting a deadline that will show whether the system is any better prepared for the next crisis.