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NHS staff have told of being forced to buy protective kit from DIY stores as the supply scandal shaming the Government deepens.

Data from a tracker app developed to assess front line shortages in the war on Covid-19 showed only 52% of doctors doing high-risk procedures had the right long-sleeved gowns.

And 38% of respondents to NHSppe App, set up by Doctors’ Association UK, had no eye protection at all.

The latest harrowing update came after the Mirror launched its Protect Us campaign, demanding that all NHS staff, carers and key workers get PPE.

DAUK policy lead Dr Jenny Vaughan said: “Three weeks after writing to the Prime Minister about the lack of PPE, frontline NHS doctors are still reporting shortages.

"Doctors, nurses and healthcare staff are worried about their own safety, that of patients and their own families.”

One doctor told DAUK: “Many wards have only one mask and visor and we’re having to share.”

Another added: “There are no gowns available to staff dealing with Covid-positive patients. The hospital says they will not provide us with scrubs and we are to take our infected clothes home and wash them. I have vulnerable ­relatives at home.”

And a partner at a GP practice said: “All my GPs have bought PPE from DIY stores as our stock ran out weeks ago.”

It came as one critical care doctor urging proper PPE provision told Sky News half of beds in his unit were filled by healthcare workers during one night shift.

Dr Alan Courtney said: “The toughest day I have had was realising half your wards are filled with healthcare professionals.

“We get the cream of the crop in critical care when it comes to PPE but this is a big issue we must get right. I don’t know what’s more tragic, the medics who have come out of retirement and have died or the younger ones who have died and have left young children behind.

“This is all so heartbreaking. I hope everyone now starts to take this seriously.”

NHS staff have also contacted the GMB union with disturbing accounts of how PPE is being rationed. One hospital worker said: “We have thin plastic aprons that tear easily and blow all over. Face masks are not fit for purpose.”

Another said: “I have not been issued with eye protection, face masks and tunic and am exposed.”

GMB chief Tim Roache said: “We’re proud to stand full square with the Mirror in demanding immediate action to get PPE to the front line. The stories are heartbreaking.”

(Image: Mercury Press & Media)

Political heavyweights and TV stars echoed his call as they backed our campaign yesterday. Tweeting a picture of our powerful front page, Labour leader Keir Starmer said: “The faces of those who gave their lives to keep us safe. The Government must provide the equipment they desperately need.”

Acting Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said: “The lack of protective equipment is becoming a national scandal.”

And Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan ambushed Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey with a copy of the Mirror live on TV.

He later said: “How could she not know how many NHS workers have died? It was the whole front page of the Mirror today.”

(Image: ITV)

At least 40 health and social care workers have died so far after contracting Covid-19. A nurse with five children was among three NHS staff whose deaths emerged yesterday.

Josiane Zauma Ebonja Ekoli, 55, from Leeds, worked at Harrogate Hospital. Daughter Naomie said: “It meant everything to be a nurse, she’s being doing it more than 30 years.”

Leilani Medel, who worked as an agency nurse in South Wales, was described as a “wonderful and caring person” by “heartbroken” colleagues.

Mrs Medel, of Bridgend, had worked at hospitals in the Cwm Taf Morg-annwg University Hospital Board area.

(Image: Joel Goodman/LNP)

Amarante Dias, a staff member at the Weston General Hospital, Somerset, was described as a “valued and much-loved colleague”.

As the battle raged on, NHS leaders thanked councils, police forces, dentists, vets and water companies for “stepping into the breach” and offering PPE. And it emerged a group of doctors has set up non-profit Med Supply Drive UK to plug PPE shortages.

Warning tonight of a dangerous lack of gowns, NHS Providers deputy chief executive Saffron Cordery said: “Some trusts continue to report very low levels.”

And care home providers warned that prioritising NHS shortages has made it harder for staff to access PPE.

Nadra Ahmed, chairwoman of the National Care Association, said: “My mailbag is full every day with members asking us where they can get PPE. If the social care sector fails, the problem is going to be much bigger for the Government.” The Government has also axed VAT on essential kit for the NHS but not for social care.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said: “No social care employer should be paying VAT for what has clearly become essential equipment.”

No10 tonight insisted 22 million items were delivered to 268 organisations across the NHS on Easter Monday, including more than 2.5 million aprons.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “We have always acknowledged there have been some issues in terms of distribution but where that has occurred we have worked very hard to resolve them.”

Meanwhile, one researcher claimed the PPE crisis is the “21st century’s Dunkirk”.

University of Oxford Professor Trisha Greenhalgh is leading reviews of research on PPE.

Referring to the evacuation of Allied soldiers in the Second World War, she said: “As Covid-19 deaths escalate, the main story about PPE has become the lack of it.

"Primary and secondary care are running low on various items. Some National Health Service staff claim they’ve been told to buy their own.

“The media is buzzing with stories of visors being 3-D printed in garden sheds, masks stitched together on kitchen sewing machines and small construction companies donating boxes of masks intended for building sites.

“Keeping the NHS in PPE has become the 21st century’s Dunkirk.”

How to back the Mirror campaign

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