Boris Johnson spent £150 million buying ‘unusable’ masks—here are 5 better uses of that cash.
At the beginning of the Pandemic the government tried to buy it’s PPE signing a contract for masks specified for healthcare staff. This was made with Ayanda Capital. Worryingly this was made by a government adviser who also advises the company’s board.
What was worse was that these masks have completely the wrong type of head fastening and the NHS deemed then ‘unusable’. This means that the £150 million of tax payers money went to Ayanda Capital with no benefit to public health.
As we enter a second lockdown we have compiled a list of thing that the Government could have spend the wasted £150 million .
- Provide meals for vulnerable children over the Christmas Holiday
Marcus Rashford and Labour’s plan to extend free school meals across holidays would cost £157 million. An amount that the Government thought was too mush when voting against it in October although they have now U-turned due to political pressure.
- Employ 3,5000 extra nurses to fight the pandemic
As winter closes in and the NHS faces stress’s it has never seen before we could have payed salaries to bring in greater staffing be that Nurses Health Care Assistance or Doctors.
- Boost testing capacity to save Serco’s failing test and trace scheme
Seco is failing as track and trace has limited capacity and efficacy £150 million could go a long way to invest into increasing testing capacity.
- Give front line Nurses, doctors and essential NHS staff a pay rise
Instead of applause we could have passed the wasted £150 million on to the heroes that have kept us safe during COVID. We have seen NHS cuts for the last 10 years yet we see the same Government wasting money.
- 450 million rolls of triple ply toilet roll to see us through the next lock down.
As we enter a second lockdown the panic buying of the first has not been seen. But even this would have been a better uses of funding than unusable masks.