PPE: Hull safety firm 'broke rules' to supply hospital staff

Thomas Martin said Arco bypassed the government's scheme and supplied PPE directly to hospitals

The boss of one of the UK's largest safety equipment companies has said he "broke the rules" to get PPE to front-line workers.

Thomas Martin, chair of Hull-based Arco, said he had "chief medical officers in tears on the phones begging for product".

He claimed existing firms were ignored at the start of the pandemic.

The government said its top priority in supplying PPE "has always been saving lives".

Mr Martin claimed the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) made a "gross error" when it bypassed the existing framework for procuring PPE at the start of the pandemic.

"It was just a feeding frenzy and we weren't part of that," he said.

"I think if we had been able to mobilise earlier and use our stocks I actually think we could have saved more lives."

"It wasn't a deliberate calculation, but I think it was a major miss by the UK government for not mobilising those throughout the safety industry with a decent track record."

Hull-based Arco is one of the UK's largest suppliers of safety equipment

Mr Martin said that eventually the company took matters into its own hands and started supplying equipment directly to NHS trusts, rather than through the government's centralised system.

"I am really proud of the fact that we worked around the system," he said.

"I had chief medical officers in tears on the phones begging for product and I delivered it personally.

"I had parents ringing me completely terrified that their sons and daughters were going to work in the front line without adequate equipment.

"Yes, we broke the rules and I'm really proud to say that we did."

The DHSC said: "We issued a public call to action to support the increased requirements for PPE, resulting in over 24,000 offers of support from over 15,000 suppliers.

"We have delivered over 11 billion items of PPE to protect our front-line workers and, as the National Audit Office (NAO) report recognised, all NHS providers they spoke to were able to get the equipment they needed in time."

Spending watchdog the NAO has also criticised the government's pandemic planning, and in a report last week said there had not always been a clear audit trail to support decisions to award PPE contracts.

Mr Thomas gave evidence to a committee of MPs on Monday.