I think it is because of the sheer number of items, for example, we use 3 sets of PPE per job/per ambulance when we take someone to hospital. Given that we do 8-10 jobs per shift that’s possibly 30 sets of PPE per vehicle per shift. The numbers are huge. I’m not sure about hospitals but it would depend on numbers of patients and staff available.
This is one of the issues with care home PPE, it should be changed after every contact with a resident, a home with 50 residents, 5 carers each responsible for 10 residents, say 10 interactions with each resident per day, that 500 sets if my maths is correct. ?It is no wonder we are running short but equally getting it washed and sterilised and back to the premises would be a virtually impossible task.
We do reuse visors, cleaning them between each job but they are only used for aerosol generating procedures so not every job.