CAMPAIGNERS have expressed “outrage” over a refusal by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to reveal who was paid billions of pounds in NHS cash for useless or non-existent personal protection equipment (PPE) during the Covid-19 pandemic.

They have launched an online open letter to Health Secretary Wes Streeting after the DHSC rejected a freedom of information (FOI) request into “dodgy PPE contracts” handed out by the Tories during the Covid crisis.

The government department rejected campaign group Organise’s request on the grounds of “commercial interests.”

In 2022, the House of Commons public accounts committee revealed that the DHSC “lost” 75 per cent of the £12 billion it spent on PPE in the first year of the pandemic to inflated prices and equipment that did not meet requirements — or was not even delivered.

The beneficiaries of the payments have not been revealed.

The letter to the Health Secretary states: “The Tory government handed out billions for PPE equipment that was faulty or never even supplied.

“A lot of these contracts were with friends of the Tories.

“This money needs to be given back to the NHS as a priority for the new incoming government.”

John Puntis, co-chairman of the Keep Our NHS Public campaign (KONP), said: “The lack of adequate PPE during the Covid pandemic is likely to have contributed to the deaths of many hundreds of health and social care workers.

“Not only were there insufficient stockpiles of equipment, but in the scramble by government to obtain supplies a fast-track mechanism was set up allowing firms with government connections to be awarded contracts despite lack of relevant expertise.

“One egregious example was the supply by a pest control company of 17m face masks which then failed testing and were unusable.”

He said that “exactly what went on in terms of profiteering is hugely important for all those affected in some way by Covid” and that it was “staggering” that information was being withheld on the grounds of “commercial interests.”

In its response to the relevant section of the FOI request, the DHSC said: “DHSC holds information relevant to your request. However, it is being withheld under section 22 (Information intended for future publication) and section 43(2) (commercial interests).”