Masks, gowns, gloves and respirators that could save the lives of the UK’s frontline health workers are being shipped to Europe despite crippling shortages in the NHS, a new report claims.

Manufacturers and textile companies say vital personal protective equipment (PPE) that Britain’s key workers are in desperate need of are leaving the country as the coronavirus death toll continues to rise.

According to a report by the Telegraph, millions of these life-saving items are being loaded into lorries and shipped to Germany, Spain and Italy, despite crippling shortages hitting key workers in the NHS, social care sector and transport services.

Unions – who are calling for an independent inquiry into the government’s handling of the PPE crisis – say a lack of protective equipment has contributed to the deaths of over 100 health and care staff so far in the battle against Covid-19.

Last night, British companies told the newspaper they had ‘no choice’ but to sell the PPE abroad because the government is ignoring their offers to give it to UK workers.

Ministers have insisted they are pursuing ‘every possible option’ to secure additional kit but have been heavily criticised amid various reports from NHS staff treating coronavirus patients while wearing gowns marked out of date, makeshift masks or nothing at all.

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The TUC Union has called for an independent inquiry into what they called the ‘grotesque failure’ of planning by the government.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady told Sky News this morning: ‘We know that every day frontline workers are being forced to put their health and their lives on the line.

‘We know over 100 key workers in health and social care have already lost their lives, we think the immediate priority is that the government gets a grip, but yes we think there should be an independent inquiry towards the end of the year as to why there was this grotesque lack of provision of PPE and ensure it never happens again.

‘What I’m hearing from those on the frontline is that they want fewer empty promises and less PR and more action.

‘First of all we were told it was a problem of distribution, then it was a problem of supply and demand and then we were hearing from manufacturers and textile companies that they couldn’t get an answer from the government when they were making offers of help.

‘Unions made that call to arms, we’ve been in touch with manufacturers, brilliant companies who were switching production to produce PPE, but they still had a problem in getting the government to take up those offers.

‘Why have we got ambulance workers wearing PPE stamped past its sell-by date? Health care staff making their own masks? Social care workers dressed in bin liners?

‘We’ve got health and care workers putting their lives on the line for us and we owe it to them to hold the government to account.’

The first of three RAF flights finally left on Monday for Turkey to begin collecting a consignment of PPE including 400,000 surgical gowns – the flight was initially supposed to leave on Sunday.

The government said a further 140,000 gowns had arrived in the UK from Burma, but the NHS has warned it uses 150,000 a day and supply is nowhere near meeting demand.

British wholesalers claim their warehouses were already full of millions of PPE items bought from China earlier this year which are now being shipped to the EU, according to the Telegraph.

Lorries registered in Italy arrived on Monday at a warehouse owned by Veenak International, a pharmaceutical wholesaler based in Birmingham, where they took delivery of 750,000 surgical masks before heading back across the Channel.

The newspaper was told that as many as five million surgical masks, more than a million FFP2 respirators and more than half a million FFP3 respirators stored inside three warehouses in Birmingham and outside Heathrow Airport were packed onto lorries registered in the EU.

Veenak International claimed millions of PPE bought from China is still in its UK warehouse, but will now be shipped abroad.

The latest official figures show that 16,509 people have died in hospital after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK, up by 449 on the previous day.

At the daily No 10 press conference on Monday, Chancellor Rishi Sunak insisted the government was improving its sourcing of PPE both internationally and domestically.

However the medical director of Public Health England, Professor Yvonne Doyle, indicated staff could refuse to work if they believed they were not properly protected.

‘Certainly people have to make their decisions based on whether they are in a risky situation or not,’ she said.

‘It is very difficult to legislate for all of that from a distance here. But the guidance is very clear on what is safe and not safe to do.’

Downing Street has been contacted for comment.

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