CORNWALL’s health and social care sector still has less than half the PPE it needs, says the local authority.

Cornwall Council’s health and care providers have received just 40% of the personal protective equipment they’ve asked for to help people working on the frontline of tackling coronavirus and helping vulnerable people.

The Council is asking the Government to provide more.

Leader Julian German said that frontline workers in home care, residential homes and GP practices were struggling.

’Our frontline workers are doing an outstanding job caring for residents who are sick or vulnerable,’ he said.

’Cornwall’s health and social care providers have highlighted lack of PPE as their biggest concern.’

Cllr German said blue light organisations had also wanted to provide more support to health and social care providers but ’the absence of PPE has hampered their efforts to do so’.

He said that Cornwall had received an allocation of PPE through the local resilience forum but this was 40% of what was required.

He added: ’We must get more. Cornwall Council is doing all that it can to make sure that this is the case.’

Speaking at a Government daily Covid-19 briefing, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said that daily deliveries of PPE would start next week but that this equipment ’must be used only where it was most needed’.

Mr Hancock said that a website would launch within the next three weeks where primary and social care providers can request supplies.

The Health Secretary said that distributing PPE was a Herculean effort.

The Cornish Times asked NHS Kernow if hospitals and health centres in the county had received extra PPE.

The Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust (RCHT) which runs Treliske in Truro, said that Treliske was ’regularly restocked with protective equipment and that ’further deliveries were expected next week’.

An RCHT spokesperson said: ’The Department of Health and Social Care has secured supplies of personal protective equipment which is going out to frontline staff, and every NHS and hospital trust in England should have received a delivery.

’While our hospitals and all NHS services are using high quantities of equipment to protect staff and combat the virus, the Government is behind ensuring our staff have the high-quality protective equipment they need. 

’RCHT, like all hospitals is regularly restocked with PPE, which is supplied from central stores through the national supply chain.  Further deliveries are due next week.’

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