The Telegraph, whose coverage of the coronavirus pandemic has been consistently excellent, reports today (21 April) that UK firms are shipping millions of pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) to Europe, while frontline NHS personnel do without; UK firms cannot get a reply to their offers of supplies; individual hospitals are ‘sidestepping the government’s procurement process’ (thank heavens); and central government longingly awaits imports from Turkey.

If accurate, the report confirms that the UK’s response to the pandemic has descended past tragedy into homicidal farce.  Sadly, having now observed British universities for seven years, I can understand what’s probably going on within the similar bureaucracy of NHS procurement: quality is a byproduct, although it may be achieved (and in universities, as on the NHS frontlines, it often is); the real concern is ticking boxes, Following Procedures and not annoying superiors.  Those managing the process have little stake in the outcome.

With a brief hiatus after the initial shock of panic buying and lockdown, within days the shelves at Tesco and Sainsburys were filling up again: these and other companies, unlike the NHS, have experience with doing logistics on the fly.  As hard as it is for a committed social democrat to say this, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that turning PPE procurement over to private sector logistics contractors, with RAF aircraft at their disposal if necessary, would have produced a superior outcome and saved lives.*  The government will have to try this route if it is to have any hope of protecting professionals and the public as a step towards a lockdown exit strategy, before the economy collapses beyond hope of repair. 

And on that note Prof. Carl Heneghan of Oxford, one of British medicine’s most conspicuous overachievers, was quoted yesterday as having told BBC Radio 4 that ‘the damaging effect now of lockdown is going to outweigh the damaging effect of coronavirus’.  Indeed, the social science tells us precisely that.  The question now is who will listen.

* Update: The Times reported on 22 April, unfortunately behind a paywall, that the NHS has in fact simplified its PPE supply chain to involve both the armed forces ‘and Clipper Logistics, a private contractor’, but that the military are ‘appalled’ by continuing inability to procure PPE and deliver it where it is needed. Clearly managers cannot get even the simplified logistics right … the fatal farce continues.