Amid the scandalous wastage of the PPE saga, there was one glittering exception: the Mail Force charity’s landmark mission supplying millions of pieces of protective equipment to the NHS free of charge.
Driven by the Daily Mail’s astonishingly generous readers and philanthropists, Mail Force raised £12million during the Covid crisis – and every single penny helped the NHS, care homes and charities through some of their darkest moments.
While businesses were pitching for lucrative access to what the Hallett report yesterday branded a ‘frenetic’ and ‘chaotic’ procurement process, Mail Force was sourcing reliable and verifiable PPE and giving it straight to those who needed it.
And unlike some suppliers, there were no profits taken or ‘VIP’ access routes for favoured firms.
And so it was that the Mail Force charity – set up by Lord Rothermere, the Chairman of the Daily Mail’s parent company – led the most successful public appeal in newspaper history.
It had been bleak in that spring of 2020: nurses with bin liners as uniforms; terrified pensioners trapped in germ-filled care homes.
Yet by the end of 2020, Mail Force had acquired more than 42million pieces of PPE and handed them to the NHS, the care sector and charities great and small – without costing taxpayers a penny.
The protective equipment went through rigorous testing to ensure it met the UK’s very high standards. At the NHS’s central PPE hub in Daventry, our donations were held up sometimes for many days while the Government’s technicians meticulously examined everything from the thickness of gowns, measured down to the micron level, to their durability under intensive testing.
Mail Force made vital deliveries of face masks and other PPE equipment to care homes, hospitals and charities across the UK
Care home staff at the Orchard Trust take a delivery of Mail Force masks and coveralls
The Mail Force charity teamed up with the ISSA Group to bring millions of high quality PPE products to nurses, care workers and charities that desperately needed them
It was not always plain sailing, and Mail Force had to send back one batch of masks for a refund. Overall, out of 42,304,000 pieces of PPE, 99.7 per cent passed muster.
Mail Force established a rigorous diligence process to ensure all certification was in place from reputable suppliers.
Throughout the endeavour, Mail Force talked to the highest echelons of the NHS and established clear guidelines.
In many cases, Mail Force’s PPE exceeded the requirements. Superior Type IIR fluid-resistant masks were sourced in their millions from our excellent Lancashire-based partners, the ISSA Group.
When Griffin Mill, a former carpet factory, switched to producing hospital aprons, Mail Force bought the first run of 1.5million, and they were such good aprons – so said the NHS staff who tried them – that we ordered nearly 20million.
Mail Force went on to raise millions more for crucial testing equipment and, latterly, to ensure that underprivileged schoolchildren had the laptops they badly needed in order to attend class remotely during the pandemic.
In total, Mail Force raised £25million, all of it logged in the public accounts submitted to the Charity Commission. With no staff, no overheads and no profit, the money from our readers went directly to where it was needed most.
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