Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his most recent estimate is of the total number of (a) items of personal protective equipment, (b) face masks and (c) surgical gowns procured during the covid-19 outbreak which could not be used by the NHS as a result of them failing to meet appropriate standards of safety; and what the cost involved in each case was.

The data is not available in the format requested.

The Department is taking steps such as repurposing or recycling items and seeking to recover costs in instances where contracts have resulted in the supply of substandard personal protective equipment.