Suggestion that health care workers might be overusing PPE is an odd one. From all my conversations with them over the past month- NHS, Social Care, hospices, the rest, the story I’ve heard repeatedly is one of underuse, if anything, as a result of concerns over poor supply.
When you’ve got care homes and hospices literally appealing to the local community for PPE, something I’ve encountered a lot, I can’t imagine managers and staff there being profligate with the supply they do have.
These are people torn in two- they want to work, they want to help the people they care about, do their jobs but they are quite literally being asked to put their lives. The 19 NHS staff who have died is testament to that. PPE is their only defence.
In sum, there’s lots of accountability to be done in the UK PPE story. Lack of domestic production, lack of preparation in the early wks and early part of the year, lack of clear guidelines at the start. If overuse has taken place here or there,it is a negligible factor, at best.
