Coronavirus: RAF plane lands back in UK after PPE mission to Turkey

Unclear if 400,000 badly-needed surgical gowns on board

An RAF plane sent to Turkey to pick up a delayed consignment of personal protective equipment (PPE) has arrived in the UK, four days after the government said the stocks would arrive.

The Airbus A400-M departed Istanbul and landed at RAF Brize Norton just after 3.30am on Wednesday, flight tracker RadarBox showed.

It is not yet known if the plane was in fact carrying 400,000 badly-needed surgical gowns.

The consignment was ordered last Thursday and was originally due to arrive last Sunday.

The government has been heavily criticised over its failure to ensure NHS staff treating coronavirus patients have the protective equipment they require.

Ministers have insisted they were pursuing “every possible option” to secure additional kit, but said the situation is “very challenging” due to unprecedented worldwide demand.

Earlier this week, the local government minister, Simon Clarke, could not give a timescale on when the full supplies would arrive, saying only it would be in the “next few days”.

The government has said 140,000 gowns had arrived from Burma, but the demand on resources remains high, with the NHS using 150,000 gowns a day.

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has called for an independent inquiry into the government’s handling of the crisis before the end of the year.

Hospitals have been forced to seek other ways of obtaining PPE, with the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust buying 6,000 sets of coveralls due to a very low stock of gowns, although it admitted this was “not ideal”.

Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, has said trusts are being forced into “hand-to-mouth” workarounds, including washing single-use gowns and restricting stocks to key areas.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak told reporters at the No 10 press briefing on Monday that work was ongoing to find more PPE.

He said: “We’re improving our sourcing internationally and domestically to make sure we can get the PPE we need in what is a very challenging international context.

“But people on the front line can rest assured that we’re doing absolutely everything we can and straining everything we can to get the equipment they need.”

Additional reporting by Press Association