A charter flight from China carrying essential equipment landed in Glasgow on Saturday morning.
The cargo included all kinds of personal protective equipment (PPE) including 10 million Type IIR face masks and infusion pumps. These are intended for Intensive Care Units. There are also virus collecting kits to be used in health laboratories.
Procurement for PPE has now been delegated to a cross-government team led by the Minister for Trade, Investment and Innovation Ivan McKee. The equipment has been sourced from Chinese suppliers by the team which includes representatives of The Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise, NHS Scotland and the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland.
Mr McKee said:“Scotland’s health and social care system is facing unprecedented demand.
“Protecting staff working on the frontline is an absolute priority which is why we have been working at pace with the NHS and manufacturers both in Scotland and internationally to improve and increase the supply of PPE.
“This charter flight, carrying additional equipment ordered by The Scottish Government, is significant and we will be focusing the distribution of these supplies to health and social care settings over the coming days.
“In these incredibly challenging times the Scottish Government will continue to do all it can to make health and social care staff feel as safe as possible in their workplace.”
Jim Miller, Director of Procurement, Commissioning and Facilities at NHS National Services Scotland (NSS), said:“This delivery is the result of a painstaking collective effort involving multiple partners working together to provide our NHS and social care colleagues with the PPE they need to keep them safe.
“Together with supply partners and Scottish Government, NSS continues to work 24/7 to source and supply the PPE that Scotland needs to fight Covid-19.”
IN the last five to seven weeks the government says it has delivered around 50 million PPE items to hospitals, with eight weeks supply of PPE delivered to GPs at the end of March.
If you do not have the PPE you need in your job then this is the email address to use: covid-19-health-PPE@gov.scot
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