A Covid PPE inquiry has found that NHS staff and patients faced serious risk during the pandemic due to a severe shortage of adequate protective equipment, with inquiry chair Baroness Hallett concluding that the country was left dangerously unprepared. The inquiry determined that almost £10bn of the £14.9bn spent on PPE by the UK and devolved governments was effectively wasted.
Baroness Hallett said the UK entered the pandemic with its stockpile of masks, gowns, and gloves in a “perilous state” and was “simply not ready to compete” in the global scramble for new supplies. She was particularly critical of the so-called “VIP lane,” which fast-tracked PPE offers from politically connected suppliers, calling it a “misguided” policy that damaged public confidence, though she stressed there was “no evidence of cronyism or corruption” among ministers or officials in how final contracts were awarded.
When spending on home testing kits, ventilators, and other equipment is factored in, the government’s total outlay between January 2020 and June 2022 topped £42bn, according to the inquiry’s findings. The UK’s emergency PPE stockpile, designed to last at least 15 weeks before requiring replenishment, was nearly depleted by the end of March 2020 as hospital demand surged.
The inquiry found that only a third of the masks held in England’s pandemic stockpile were actually usable, while Scotland had no supply of the high-grade respiratory masks needed in hospital settings. At the same time, care homes, GP surgeries, and pharmacies were left to source their own PPE, a situation the report described as a “major failure in planning.”
Government contingency plans had “never been stress tested,” the inquiry noted, forcing officials and ministers to improvise entirely new emergency procurement and distribution systems within days of the crisis unfolding. “Better planning would have resulted in fairer, faster and less costly procurement decisions,” the report concluded, adding that public trust was “significantly damaged” by the equipment failures, undermining the efforts of many officials who worked hard under pressure.
The VIP lane, formally known as the high priority lane, was introduced in England in April 2020 to fast-track PPE contract offers that came recommended by ministers, MPs, members of the House of Lords, or other senior officials. At the time, the government defended the approach, citing a “desperate need” to protect frontline health and social care workers and the necessity of acting quickly to secure supplies.
The inquiry, however, branded the policy a “misguided attempt at prioritisation” that “embedded unfairness in emergency procurement,” noting that some suppliers benefited from political connections to the then Conservative government in ways that “undermined trust at a moment when it needed it most.” The report concluded firmly that “the high priority lane should not have been established and must not be repeated.”
In February 2025, the inquiry devoted a day to examining PPE Medpro, a company linked to businessman Doug Barrowman and his wife, Baroness Michelle Mone, over contracts worth more than £200m. Both Barrowman and Mone have denied any wrongdoing. Baroness Hallett ordered that testimony from senior officials on this matter be heard privately to avoid prejudicing an ongoing National Crime Agency investigation, and a section of the final report covering PPE Medpro has been withheld until any criminal proceedings conclude. No charges have been filed to date, with the NCA describing its investigation as an ongoing priority.
Altogether, 48 witnesses gave oral evidence on this portion of the inquiry during February and March 2025, including former health secretary Matt Hancock and cabinet minister Michael Gove. Among the inquiry’s recommendations are a radical overhaul of the emergency PPE procurement and distribution system ahead of any future pandemic, a domestic industry strategy that treats essential healthcare equipment as a strategic national asset, and improvements to the pandemic stockpile currently housed in a warehouse in Merseyside.
