PPE: There needs to be a public inquiry

Frontline NHS staff and care workers are putting their lives at risk because of the Government’s failure to provide adequate PPE. Doctors are having to wear visors made by teenagers on 3D printers. Care workers are being told to share the same mask. A number of the protective gowns that the Government flew in from Turkey have been deemed unsafe for use and are now sat in a warehouse gathering dust.

The consequences of these failures are devastating. Hundreds of those on the frontline of this crisis will already have lost their lives. The Government has said lessons will be learnt in time. But those on the frontline of this crisis can’t afford to wait. They need PPE now.

The Government has a legal duty to hold an urgent inquiry into its failure to get adequate PPE to NHS staff and care workers.The Good Law Project is working with the Doctors’ Association UK to hold them to it. Our Pre Action Protocol letter to the Department of Health can be seen here.

Litigation of this scale and importance is undeniably difficult and expensive. The Good Law Project has instructed the best legal team available: Paul Bowen QC, Tim Johnston and Emma Mockford of Brick Court Chambers and Bindmans LLP. If you are able to donate to the crowdfunded legal challenge you can do so by clicking here.

Unless we understand these failings now, we risk making the same mistakes all over again. A society that does not learn from its mistakes is condemned to repeat them. We owe those on the frontline of this crisis more than that.