Health care workers in the community have claimed that they have still not been provided with the correct Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) equipment despite clear guidelines as to what they are should be wearing in certain situations and despite the delivery of 5.5 million pieces of PPE equipment to Northern Ireland this week.

One Trust employee who works in the community visiting people’s home has explained that “we still have no masks and we have been told that this won’t be changing. We have had to get our own masks from other places”.

Public Health England reviewed the guidelines on the wearing of PPE and these were implemented by the Public Health Authority here in Northern Ireland.

In the community setting the guidelines state that during “direct care or visit to any individuals in the extremely vulnerable group or where a member of the household is within the extremely vulnerable group undergoing shielding” that care workers should wear disposable gloves, a disposable plastic apron and a surgical mask. Each item is only to be used once according to the new guidelines.

The health care worker explained that they were provided with an adequate supply of gloves but only enough aprons for three to four days of visits while no masks have been provided.

“We have patients who we are seeing who would be in the vulnerable group, who have problems with their lungs and with their breathing but we have been told we will not be getting masks,” the health care worker explained.

The Impartial Reporter asked several questions to both the Department of Health (DoH) and also the Western Health and Social Care Trust (WHSCT).

Included in those questions were the concerns of the health care workers that we spoke to regarding the provision of adequate PPE and also the timescale for the delivery of PPE from the shipment that arrived in Northern Ireland this week.

A WHSCT spokesperson stated: “All staff who need PPE, in line with the clinical guidance, are able to access it in line with our normal processes.

“Whilst we have reasonable numbers of stock either on hand or our share of regional Pandemic stock, it will very quickly run down during surge.

“The Business Services Organisation (BSO) is responsible for regional procurement and supply of PPE and Trusts are responsible for local distribution, both within the organisation and to Independent Sector organisations that can’t source their own PPE.

“The policy is that PPE should be distributed only on the basis of identified need.

“The distribution arrangements have had to be established in recent weeks to support our community services and other health and social care partners.”

A DoH spokesperson explained: “BSO will continue to allocate stocks across the health care sector on a shared basis to ensure that supplies are in the right place at the right time and will respond to requests from Trusts for additional stock as they are received.”

Health Minister Robin Swann said this week that the deployment of PPE had to be “the best it could be”.

“I recognise that it’s not enough for me to simply say our stocks are significant or sufficient for current pressures.

“We need to make sure our distribution and deployment to all frontline settings is the best it can be – and that all staff know where to turn within their organisations when they have concerns or questions.”

“Frontline settings include hospitals, ambulance crews, primary care Covid centres, care homes, domiciliary care workers and other parts of the system where staff are working flat out to care for people,” he said.