Britain has to do more to get equipment to health workers - minister

Britain has to do more to get equipment to health workers - minister

Britain needs to do more to get personal protective equipment (PPE) to health workers on the frontline, housing minister Robert Jenrick said on Saturday (April 18) after criticism about shortages in hospitals treating COVID-19 patients.

"We've got to do more to get the PPE that people need to the frontline," Jenrick said during the government's daily briefing, adding that a consignment was due to arrive from Turkey on Sunday (April 19) containing equipment including 400,000 protective gowns.

Jenrick also announced that Captain Tom Moore, a 99-year-old British war veteran who has raised more than $29 million for the health service by walking 100 laps of his garden, will be a guest of honour at the opening of a new field hospital next week.

Moore will appear via video link at the opening of a new "Nightingale" hospital in Harrogate, northern England, which is being set up to help deal with the coronavirus outbreak.

Britain is at or near the peak of a health crisis in which more than 15,000 people have died - the fifth highest national death toll of a pandemic linked to at least 150,000 deaths worldwide.

Outlining the latest figures on the outbreak, Jenrick said Britain's hospital death toll from COVID-19 rose by 888 to 15,464 as of April 17.

But the number of patients in hospitals with the disease had decreased in London over several days with encouraging signs in other parts of the country also, NHS England Medical Director Stephen Powis told media at the briefing.