Coronavirus: Hospitals washing gowns at 60C to reuse PPE as stocks run low

NHS Providers chief says trusts forced into ‘hand to mouth’ arrangements – and reveals previous government orders of gowns have gone awry

Some hospitals are washing single-use protective gowns at 60C so they can be used several times by frontline staff because of the ongoing shortage, according to a senior NHS official.

Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, also said hospitals could not rely on government promises that more personal protective equipment (PPE) was on the way – saying there was “relatively low confidence” a shipment of 400,000 gowns would arrive from Turkey on Monday.

The head of the membership organisation for NHS trusts in England said some trusts had taken to “hand to mouth” arrangements, with one discovering that some types of gowns remained fluid-repellent if washed at high temperatures.

“There is no doubt that at the moment we have now got trusts who have definitely got shortages of gowns,” Mr Hopson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “Trust leaders are doing absolutely everything they can to try and address that problem.”

He said several NHS trusts were now “investigating” whether they can safely wash and reuse the fluid-repellent gowns offering the highest level of protection to frontline workers.

“There’s one trust that’s discovered that if you launder those gowns at 60 degrees, what they’ve found is that there’s probably up to three times you can do that and the gowns appear to still be capable of being fully fluid repellent,” he said.

“Now this isn’t ideal, this is really hand-to-mouth which is why we kind of need to get to a more sustainable supply.”

A leaked Public Health England (PHE) document revealed some PPE could be reused by staff under “last resort” plans to cope with shortages. A Public Health England spokesperson confirmed that the “safe reuse of items” was under consideration, but no decisions had yet been made.

Guidance issued by the PHE on Friday encouraged NHS staff to use “fluid-resistant” gowns – such as workers’ coveralls – if the more protective fluid-repellent gowns were not available.

Mr Hopson also spoke about the delayed shipment of 400,000 gowns the government expects to receive from Turkey. “Let’s just focus on what we know we can be certain of,” he said.

“Bitter experience over the last few weeks has shown that until a consignment of gowns has actually landed, the boxes have been checked and the equipment has been tested, the NHS simply can’t count on the gowns being available on the front line.

“A great example would be that, last week, there was an order for 200,000 gowns due to come in from China but only 20,000 actually arrived,” he added. “We know that with other orders, when the boxes were opened up and it said on the outside ‘gowns’, when you opened it up, they were actually masks.”

Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation – a membership body representing healthcare organisations from all sectors – echoed Mr Hopson's concerns over the Turkey shipment: "It would have been better had the government not made the announcement in the first place.

He also said that staff would need to make their own assessment over whether they felt safe with the PPE currently on offer.

The NHS is thought to use around 150,000 gowns a day, meaning the stock from Turkey would last less than three days even if delivered as promised.

Culture secretary Oliver Dowden said he was hopeful the shipment would still arrive, telling BBC One’s Breakfast programme: “We are very hopeful that later today that flight will take off and we will get those gowns. We are working very hard to resolve this, there have been challenges at the Turkish end.”

Health Secretary Matt Hancock was unable to say whether there would be enough gowns when questioned by MPs on the Health and Social Care Committee on Friday, and said he did not have “a magic wand” to fix the situation.