In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic back in early-to-mid 2020, The Leaders Council heard numerous accounts of personal protective equipment [PPE] shortages and scarcity of other key medical supplies causing tremendous disruption to the health sector and risking the wellbeing of key personnel; issues which made national headlines.
One of the major bones of contention in the early weeks of the crisis was the distribution of PPE outside the NHS. Between March and July 2020, the National Audit Office uncovered that 1.9 billion PPE items were distributed to NHS Trusts by the government, equating to 80 per cent of the health service’s estimated need. On the other hand, the social care sector received 331 million items of PPE from central government in the same timeframe, a meagre ten per cent of their estimated need.
Social care providers and representative bodies were subsequently clear in their message to the NAO that support for the sector was inadequate. While PPE procurement posed a major challenge outside of the NHS, attempting to acquire key consumables was another major issue.
Community Rehabilitation Management Ltd, a home rehabilitation provider for people with acquired brain and spinal cord injury or trauma, was one organisation that encountered these very problems.
Founder and managing director Emma Bradley-Bond boasts over 25 years’ experience in nursing, with over 20 of those years specifically coming in the field of brain and spinal trauma care and rehabilitation. Despite having been a case manager since 1995, the year 2020 was the first time that Emma had ever experienced such incredible shortages of key equipment.
Emma said: “As a company we provide care and case management services to both private clients and clients funded by Clinical Commissioning Groups [CCGs] who have sustained catastrophic spinal cord injuries resulting in their lives being led by being ventilator dependent. Until March 24, 2020, this did not pose any kind of logistical problem with the timely ordering of all the consumables and medical equipment they needed.
“However, over the following couple of months, we were unable to get hold of key equipment such as wet or dry vent circuits, trachy dressings, trachy tubes and a number of other daily needed supplies. These were in short supply due to the securing of these consumables to the NHS.”
While Emma was understanding of the need to divert supplies to key NHS services on the frontline of battling the Covid-19 pandemic, she stressed that people living lives in the community and in care settings relied on the items.
“These shortages provided a significant challenge for service providers like us and others across the sector,” Emma said.
“People living their lives in the community needed these items and still do. They rely on them to stay alive, breathe and live independently so as not to overburden the NHS system.
“The need for care to be adequately supplied in future cannot be forgotten and lessons must be learned from this. Normal levels of consumables must remain within NHS supply chains.”
With the government having set out a key supplies strategy for the future involving the establishment of a UK manufacturing base for PPE, and consultation currently underway on extending free PPE provision to the health and social care sector until after March 31, 2022, industry leaders such as Emma can only hope that lessons have been learnt from the early days of the crisis and such shortages are not allowed to materialise once more.
