PPE Medpro, a company linked to Tory peer Michelle Mone, made an extraordinary profit on the sale of surgical gowns to the government. The gowns were sold to the government for £122m, but purchased from the Chinese manufacturer for just £46m. The profit was revealed in documents leaked to The Guardian.
The gowns were bought at the start of the pandemic and delivered in 2020, but the 25m gowns were never used by the NHS after government officials rejected them following an inspection. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has for months been seeking to recover money from PPE Medpro through a mediation process. The firm claims it is entitled to keep the money, arguing that DHSC “agents” approved the gowns after inspection.
PPE Medpro’s contract to supply 25m sterile surgical gowns was one of two awarded to the company after it was processed through a government “VIP lane” for politically connected companies.
Full story in The Guardian, 27 March 2022
