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Air Force Plane Carrying Vital Turkish Medical Kit Lands in U.K.

Air Force Plane Carrying Vital Turkish Medical Kit Lands in U.K.

(Bloomberg) --

A delayed Royal Air Force plane carrying vital personal protective equipment from Turkey finally arrived in the U.K., as the British government struggles to ease supply shortages that have hampered efforts to tackle the coronavirus outbreak.

The equipment is being checked “because what we do know with some of these deliveries is they don’t always have exactly what you expect,” Health Minister Helen Whately told Sky News on Wednesday.

The saga of the delayed shipment from Turkey has come to illustrate the scale of the problem facing the government to keep up with demand. Ministers have come under intense criticism amid reports of front-line staff having to treat patients without adequate protection.

Air Force Plane Carrying Vital Turkish Medical Kit Lands in U.K.

While the death rate from Covid-19 shows signs of leveling off in U.K. hospitals, officials have said current data is under-reporting the number of deaths in care homes, where medical equipment has been slow to arrive because they operate outside the regular National Health Service procurement system.

More accurate numbers from care homes are expected to be released next week, Whately told the BBC on Wednesday. About a quarter of the country’s care homes currently have an outbreak of Covid-19, she said.

“I’m really, really worried about death in care homes,” Whately said. “We know that people are dying much more than usual in the care sector.”

The equipment from Turkey follows a shipment of gowns from Myanmar this week, while another consignment of millions of face masks is expected in the coming days, Whately said.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.