THE management of Mid and South Essex Hospital Foundation Trust, which runs Basildon and Thurrock Hospital, has again insisted it is fully supplied with all items of Personal Protective Equipment - despite many reports across a number of media outlets (including Thurrock Nub News) that staff are saying there is a shortfall.

And representatives of firms, organisations and individuals have been pictured directly delivering donations of equipment to staff at the hospital, who have posted their thanks on social media.

The Trust has not responded to media enquiries about the situation other than saying, last Friday (17 April), they had no issues with supply.

That was an opinion widely disputed by members of staff and prompted publication of this article.

This afternoon (Friday, 24 April) in a message to Foundation Trust members, the Trust repeated its statement that there are no shortages.

it said: "Ensuring our staff are safe and have the correct personal protective equipment (PPE) is our absolute priority. Throughout the current Covid-19 pandemic we have been working tirelessly to ensure we have supplies of PPE for staff who need it.

"Please be reassured that we have not run out of PPE.

"There is a national shortage of gowns but we have sufficient stocks of gowns and coveralls at the moment. We are well stocked for all other PPE such as masks and gloves.

"With respect to gowns, we could find ourselves in a difficult situation in the coming days and weeks. We want to be on the front foot so are looking at ways of ensuring we have gowns available. We have worked closely with our microbiology and infection control leads and have started to look at decontaminating our gowns and coveralls so we can use them again.

"Initial tests have taken place and are looking extremely positive – they remain fully fluid-resistant after laundering. While we have not yet started to reuse gowns or coveralls, testing this procedure is a sensible and responsible step to take so we can be fully prepared and seek assurances about all our options."