Doctors may on Monday have to make difficult choices about whether to treat coronavirus patients when faced with inadequate personal protective equipment, a leading doctor has warned.

With supplies of gowns running critically low in some areas of the UK, Dr Alison Pittard, the dean of the faculty of intensive care medicine, said her members were “concerned about having to make those sorts of decisions” and would have to take decisions on their own merit potentially on Monday.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme her organisation was “very concerned about the update to the PPE guidance” as it was the first time advice on PPE has been given based to a shortage, rather than best practice.

The change, first reported by the Guardian, means fluid-resistant gowns, rather than fluid-repellent gowns, can be used.

Several hospitals are expecting to run out out of protective gowns in the coming days, with the situation worsened by the delay of a consignment from Turkey that was meant to arrive on Sunday night.

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Chris Hopson, the leader of NHS Providers, which represents hospital bosses, urged the government to stop talking up individual deliveries of PPE until they had landed and been checked as it was known from “bitter experience” that they might not arrive or be usable.

Responding for the government, Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, said first he expected the Turkey delivery to arrive on Monday and later that he was “hopeful” that it would come.

He said there had been a “singular effort across government to get this equipment” and highlighted the global competition for resources. “We are working hard to get it to where it’s needed.”

In relation to the Turkish consignment of about 400,000 gowns, he said there had been “challenges at the Turkish end with getting the relevant paperwork” and said a further “25m gowns from China” were expected soon.

Dowden also defended the government from criticism over its response to coronavirus, after it emerged over the weekend Boris Johnson had not attended five emergency Cobra meetings at the start of the crisis.

He said it was “normal and proper” for more junior ministers to chair the gathering and argued it was not the time to look back with “perfect 20/20 hindsight”.

Q&A Coronavirus: should everyone be wearing face masks? Show Hide Some countries and states have been recommending that everybody wears face masks in indoor settings where social distancing is difficult or impossible. They have been made mandatory on public transport or in shops in many countries. According to guidance from the World Health Organization, people over 60 or with health issues should wear a medical-grade mask when they are out and cannot socially distance, while all others should wear a three-layer fabric mask. The WHO guidance, announced on 5 June, is a result of research commissioned by the organisation. It is still unknown whether the wearers of masks are protected, say its experts, but the new design it advocates does give protection to other people if properly used. The WHO says masks should be made of three layers – with cotton closest to the face, followed by a polypropylene layer and then a synthetic layer that is fluid-resistant. These are no substitute for physical distancing and hand hygiene, it says, but should be worn in situations where distancing is difficult, such as on public transport and at mass demonstrations. The WHO has been reluctant to commit to recommending face coverings, firstly because the evidence on whether they offer any protection to the public is limited and – more importantly – because it was afraid it would lead to shortages of medical-grade masks for health workers. Sarah Boseley Health editor

The culture secretary declined to acknowledge it had been wrong to allow mass gatherings such as Cheltenham festival to go ahead at the beginning of March, saying the government had listened to “all the scientific advice” about taking the right steps at the right time.

With ministers now focused on the way through the crisis, Dowden struck a cautious note about when the lockdown will be ended.

Some senior cabinet ministers have been pressing for an early end to the shutdown, but Johnson is understood to be cautious about relaxing restrictions too early and risking a second peak that requires another hard response.

Dowden signalled this was likely to be the approach, saying: “We said right at the beginning of this, and the prime minister said, he expected the peak to last around three months. What’s happened is kind of consistent with that.”