The huge profits apparently made by PPE Medpro and its supply chain associates are revealed in documents leaked to the Guardian, including the contracts and an inspection report for sterile surgical gowns provided by the company. Although purchased at the start of the pandemic and delivered in 2020, the 25 million gowns were never used by the NHS after being rejected by government officials after an inspection. The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (DHSC) has been seeking money from PPE Medpro for months through a mediation process. The company claims that it is entitled to keep the money, claiming that the DHSC “agents” approved the dresses after an inspection. PPE Medpro’s contract for the supply of 25 million sterile surgical gowns was one of two awarded to the company after being handled through a government “VIP lane” for politically affiliated companies. The company first entered the government’s top priority after Mone contacted two cabinet ministers – Michael Gove and Theodore Agnew – in May 2020 to say that PPE could come from my “team in Hong Kong”. Documents leaked to the Guardian shed light on the production of gowns by a Chinese company, Wujiang Tutaike Textile and Finishing Co Ltd, as well as the apparent cost price paid. Two contracts entered into by PPE Medpro’s supply chain intermediaries with Wujiang suggest that it has supplied all 25 million dresses. The total price paid was $ 60.35 million, which at the time was equivalent to about 46 46 million. This suggests that PPE Medpro and three intermediaries shared profits of up to 76 76 million – perhaps less shipping and other logistics costs. A spokesman for PPE Medpro said the company had saved government money, given the prices it was paying for PPE at the time. “The supply chain was important, including the supply team, manufacturers, sterilization units, packaging, quality assurance teams, logistics, financing and more,” they said. “This global team of people and companies worked around the clock 24/7 to deliver PPE to the front line to save lives.” In January, the Guardian revealed that a leak of leaked files appeared to indicate that both Mone and her husband, Isle of Man financier Douglas Barrowman, were secretly involved in PPE Medpro’s operations. The leak included WhatsApp messages from June 2020 in which Mone, sending messages from a private jet, appeared to discuss the required gown sizes and details about DHSC’s purchase order or “PO” process. Lawyers representing Mone said the Guardian’s report was “based entirely on speculation and speculation and was not based on accuracy”. They have repeatedly stated that “it was not affiliated with PPE Medpro in any capacity”, had no “affiliation” with the company and “never had any role or function” in the process by which the contracts were awarded to the company. Barrowman’s lawyers also fired him from PPE Medpro, but did not deny that he benefited financially from the company’s operations. The House of Lords Commissioner for Standards, Martin Jaley, is investigating whether Mone should have expressed interest in the company or whether it violated lobbying rules. Monet denies any wrongdoing, saying: “I was asked to help in a time of national emergency.” Her lawyer said Mone would not answer questions about the dresses because “she has no involvement in the business”. A PPE Medpro lawyer said the company believed it was entitled to keep the money paid for the unused robes, based on the fact that it had fulfilled the contract. They said: “The robes were fully inspected by DHSC agents and only when they were satisfied that the contractual requirements were met was the payment sent to PPE Medpro. The payment was sent in full, clearly indicating full satisfaction with the inspection process. “ Do you have information about this story? Email [email protected] or (using a non-functioning phone) use Signal or WhatsApp to send a message to +44 7584 640566 This inspection appears to have taken place in China before the gowns were transported to the United Kingdom. The Guardian saw a 20-page report leaked about an internal supply chain inspection that apparently took place before that, in late August, at a factory in China’s Jiangsu province. Contains photos from inside the factory showing workers in everyday clothes on sewing machines next to large piles of blue dresses, some of which are lost on the floor. The packing area is narrow and dimly lit. The photos show that the PPE Medpro robes were packed in boxes at the factory with a “sterile surgical gown” printed on the side in capital letters. Each dress was also wrapped in a transparent plastic bag, with labels inside. The labels on the inspection report shall bear the name and logo of PPE Medpro, the technical specifications and the instructions for use for the “sterile surgical gowns”. However, they do not display a certification number from a “notified body” such as the British Standards Institution (BSI) which is usually expected to confirm that surgical gowns were sterile in accordance with regulations. A lawyer for PPE Medpro did not dispute that no notified body had certified the robes as sterile, but suggested that this was not necessary because the robes had been approved under an “equivalent technical solution” meaning that “the usual rules do not apply”. Drafts and final labels mounted on Medpro PPE robes. The final labels did not contain a BSI number. Photo: The Guardian They suggested that PPE Medpro was exempted from the formal rules because its products were supplied by “very specific and precisely agreed procedures” and “in accordance with the annexes to the contract”. The Guardian also leaked what appears to be a label design for PPE Medpro gowns that included a BSI number. It is not known when the label was designed or by whom, and it does not appear to have been used as the final label. It looks very much the same as the final label on the leaked inspection report, except for the appearance of the number – 2797 – which is the official identification mark for the BSI office in the Netherlands. A BSI spokesman said he had never authorized PPE Medpro to use this certification number and had now reported the incident to the Dutch regulatory authority, the Health and Youth Care Inspectorate (IGJ): “We can confirm that PPE Medpro did not is a customer of BSI. We have reported the misuse of our notified body number to the IGJ. “ PPE Medpro did not respond directly to Guardian questions about when the label was designed, what its purpose was, if it ever appeared at DHSC and why it apparently displayed an unauthorized BSI number. The company’s lawyer said he denied any wrongdoing. The lawyer added that DHSC had required all sterilization documents prior to shipment and the gowns were received by an approved sterilization unit. When the robes were finally delivered to a PPC warehouse in Daventry, they were inspected by officials from both the DHSC and the Drugs and Health Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA). DHSC declined to explain why the dresses were rejected, while mediation for its dispute with PPE Medpro continues. An MHRA spokesman said: “They did not enter the supply chain after a series of inspections by MHRA and DHSC, which also showed that they were not double-wrapped.”
