The Guardian reports that the government has accused PPE Medpro, the company linked to the Conservative peer Michelle Mone, of supplying defective gowns that could have compromised the safety of patients had it been used in the NHS.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) paid the company, PPE Medpro, £122m for 25m sterile surgical gowns under a contract awarded in June 2020 after Mone first approached ministers offering to supply PPE. However, the DHSC has alleged the gowns were rejected because they were not sterile, their technical labelling was “invalid” and “improper”, and they “cannot be used within the NHS for any purpose”.
The DHSC’s allegations will add to the intense public and political pressure on Mone over her apparent involvement in PPE Medpro, after the Guardian reported in November that leaked bank documents indicated she and her three adult children had secretly received £29m originating from the company’s profits on the government PPE deals.
Full story in The Guardian, 4 January 2023
