Covid seems to have been profitable for some

Since the PPE is unsuitable for purpose I find it strange that it apparently wasn’t returned to the supplier as unfit and the charge refunded
I have long wondered this, and have concluded that it is either yet another example of ineptitude or that the rules which apply to everyone else in society do not apply to pals of government ministers.

Or in a national State of Emergency?
Maybe different rules apply aka a ‘free for all’.
It was a dog’s dinner of a procurement process with everyone panicking. Worldwide.
We forget how scared we all were in April 2020.

Urmstongran

Or in a national State of Emergency?
Maybe different rules apply aka a ‘free for all’.
It was a dog’s dinner of a procurement process with everyone panicking. Worldwide.
We forget how scared we all were in April 2020.

Please read my earlier post. I did explain what should have happened in the state of Emergency. The contracts should have been published and MH had his knuckles rapped by the
courts following the Good Law Project's successful case.

We should also be reminding ourselves that Jeremy Hunt was Health Secretary for years, during which Operation Cygnet was run, and then quietly shelved. There is no excuse for a government which has been in power for a long time not to have contingency for emergencies, something as simple as making sure that there was an up to date directory of reputable PPE suppliers. I assume that if we suddenly found ourselves at war, we would have a list of arms manufacturers or would that be left to a Norfolk pub owner or a bra manufacturer to organise it? The first duty of any government, of any political persuasion is to ensure the safety of its citizens, and the Tory administration failed to do so.

We should also be reminding ourselves that Jeremy Hunt was Health Secretary for years, during which Operation Cygnet was run, and then quietly shelved.

That's one of the things I was thinking of when I talked of the government being unprepared for a pandemic.

There was also the fact that they had contracted out the storage and upkeep of emergency supplies of PPE to a private company and when it came to the point where it was needed much of it was found to be out of date and so useless. Whereas, of course, the stock should have been monitored and kept up to date. Yet another black mark against privatisation...

Excusing the government by saying that it was a 'National state of Emergency', as Ug and others have done, is letting the government off the hook. It is the business of government to plan for all sort of 'national emergencies' and to be able to implement the appropriate plan speedily and efficiently at the time when it is needed.

Governments plan for all sorts of things, from drought to floods, from pandemics to food shortage, from energy crises to war.

That is what we pay them to do.

That is what we should expect from them.

Whitewavemark2

Governments plan for all sorts of things, from drought to floods, from pandemics to food shortage, from energy crises to war.

That is what we pay them to do.

That is what we should expect from them.

Exactly. This is such a fundamental aspect of governance, I just cannot understand why anyone would make excuses for this dereliction of duty. In my opinion, Covid brought many of this administration's shortcomings and failings into plain sight and I am sick to death of covid being used as an excuse. An epidemic, expected or otherwise should have meant that the existing suppliers of PPE to the NHS were contacted, then slack taken up by manufacturers of similar products who could adapt their machinery and staff into producing PPE. Instead, we saw the first step was to set up a VIP fast track preferential buddies and donors list and share out the spoils. There must be criminal prosecutions here, with subsequent loss of so called honours. If Ms Mone is one that we know about, just how many others are there?

Wasn’t there a huge exercise both practical and theoretical in 2016 about testing our readiness fir serious incidents and it was found we were quite unprepared and very much wanting. Instead of dealing with this it was shelved and nothing more was done, and then there was Covid.

As fir Mrs Mone, and her £29 million, her husband is reported to have been paid £65 million, so a grand total between them of £100 million.
It’s a scandal which was allowed to happen by our Tiry government. Lucky old us.

It’s probably a stupid question, and not strictly relevant here, but how does PPE go out of date? Surely plastic aprons, masks, gloves etc can’t go out of date. My son in law had to wear PPE that covered him from head to foot when he worked in the Covid Hub during the pandemic, but I still cannot for the life of me understand how such items go out of date.

Maddyone
Plastic breaks down.

maddyone plastic deteriorates, it will split or become brittle which renders it not fit for purpose.

One of the reasons that PPE cannot be hoarded any in stock has to be rotated constantly.

GrannyGravy13

maddyone plastic deteriorates, it will split or become brittle which renders it not fit for purpose.

One of the reasons that PPE cannot be hoarded any in stock has to be rotated constantly.

It was hoarded prior to the pandemic, it was tested and re-labelled for use if still safe. Some things were in common use before, so it was easy to rotate stock and keep the pandemic contingency stock up to date, eg aprons and gloves. Other items were not used pre- pandemic to anything like the extent of stock needed, eg face masks. There was also a quantity issue - the outbreak escalated more quickly than expected, so the contingency stock did not last long enough. Many lessons learnt.

Apparently it is costing us £700000 over a period of time (I forget how long) to store the PPE that is useless.

Another nightmare.

Country has gone mad

I should have said - the relabelled stock we were using had expired as long ago as 2016.

volver

The £29 million is shocking. But when I think of her I spend most of my energy wondering why a wummin from the East End of Glasgow thought to call herself Baroness Mone of Mayfair.

Mayfair??

And if you've seen some of her tweets...😲 She doesn't come across as a nice woman.

A friend's daughter had the misfortune to work with her for several months. It was not a good experience. I think she would certainly agree with your last sentence. The words 'a piece of work' were mentioned.

Thank you ladies for explanations, you can tell I’m not a scientist
It all makes sense now. We would never have been able to stock, store, and rotate enough PPE for the pandemic by the sound of it. If we stocked as much as was needed, it’d go out of date (as it did) because without a pandemic that amount of stock simply isn’t needed. My daughter, a GP, used very little PPE prior to the pandemic, mainly she used gloves, but suddenly she had to wear scrubs, apron, mask, and double gloves, clean for each patient. I don’t think the scrubs were clean for each patient, but other stuff was. This was of course for the face to face consultations that she didn’t have! But actually she did!

As fir Mrs Mone, and her £29 million, her husband is reported to have been paid £65 million, so a grand total between them of £100 million.

Not quite right, silverlining.

Mone's (now) husband was paid £65million. £29 million of which found itself into Mone's offshore account...

The company she got through the VIP lane had only just been set up and had no experience at all in the provision of PPE. Many long standing providers of PPE to the NHS were ignored...

I read that when she first applied for fast track the company was not yet in existence.

Whitewavemark2

I read that when she first applied for fast track the company was not yet in existence.

Yet she had no connection with it 😇

What a coincidence...

If it was all above board, why has she lied and tried to cover up?

Maisie Thank you, I must have misheard, however 65 million is still massive.

ByLine Times article on the Mone affair, with embedded links to other suspect contracts and information.

For anyone who's interested.

bylinetimes.com/2022/11/25/what-happened-ppe-procurement-covid-pandemic-uk/

MaizieD

^As fir Mrs Mone, and her £29 million, her husband is reported to have been paid £65 million, so a grand total between them of £100 million.^

Not quite right, silverlining.

Mone's (now) husband was paid £65million. £29 million of which found itself into Mone's offshore account...

The company she got through the VIP lane had only just been set up and had no experience at all in the provision of PPE. Many long standing providers of PPE to the NHS were ignored...

Apparently she applied for a contract and then set up the first company. They then set up other companies, each would have their own bank accounts and bounced the money through them.

Apparently she applied for a contract and then set up the first company. They then set up other companies, each would have their own bank accounts and bounced the money through them.

Is that her and her then fiance, now husband? How could they get away with doing that and then her denying point blank that she had any connection with the company and didn't get any financial benefit?

Is that her and her then fiance, now husband? How could they get away with doing that and then her denying point blank that she had any connection with the company and didn't get any financial benefit?

Probably the same way that Johnson lied his head off about parties/drinks/breaking lockdown and nothing has been done about it (yet). I understand that Rees-Mogg has defended her too.