Coronavirus UK: £200k-a-year civil servant behind PPE shambles

This is the senior civil servant running the company at the centre of Britain’s PPE coronavirus shambles, MailOnline can reveal.

Jin Sahota, 52, is the £200,000-a-year chief executive of Supply Chain Co-ordination Limited (SCCL) which is the management arm of the NHS supply operation.

It was set up by the Department of Health in 2018 to improve the way the NHS buys and distributes healthcare products – including protective equipment. 

In an official letter last year, Health Secretary Matt Hancock name-checked Mr Sahota as one of two men having primary responsibility for managing the ‘NHS Supply Chain services’. 

The letter clearly states that SCCL’s purpose is ‘procurement, logistics… quality control… emergency response’. 

He also named Jim Spittle, 67, who has worked for Tesco, Kingfisher and the Charter Institute of Logistics and Transport and is SCCL’s non-executive chairman. 

But the UK has been savaged over its efforts to acquire PPE as it emerged that PPE is being shipped from Britain to Europe because firms claim offers of help are being ignored. 

At least 100 medics in Britain have died from coronavirus and Army sources have been ‘appalled’ at how the Government has dealt with the situation.

A RAF plane was delayed in Tukey before returning home with only half the emergency cargo which had been provided.

Supplies of face masks, gloves and gowns have proved so dismal, that Mr Hancock has been forced to bring in London 2012 organiser Lord Deighton to oversee operations.  

Mr Sahota, who is married with children, refused to answer questions when approached at his £950,000 four-bedroom home in the North-West London suburb of Pinner.

Having started his career in mobile computing, he moved on to become global sourcing manager for Motorola in Germany and the UK.

In 2005 he joined media entertainment services Technicolor and became senior vice president of worldwide operations based in Paris.

In 2016 he returned back to the UK to join the Cabinet Office to work in the commercial division.

Now on secondment from the Cabinet Office, he was tasked with transforming the NHS Supply Chain to make it one of the ‘most powerful procurement entities in Europe’.  

But senior sources in healthcare logistics told MailOnline the not-for-profit company is bogged down in bureaucracy while a former director general of the Association of British HealthTech Industries (ABHI) blasted it as ‘not fit for purpose’.

And now Tory MP Steve Baker has said the executives responsible for the scandal should be held accountable.

He told MailOnline: ‘I was astonished to discover someone had failed to foresee that we’d need to provide PPE to 58,000 healthcare settings and not just 226 healthcare trusts.

‘Well paid executives at this company need to explain why that happened and they need to explain why they are still failing to buy PPE from companies who have it available.

‘Where PPE meets the specification necessary, it is just unconscionable that it shouldn’t be bought.

‘At a time like this, senior executives working in the supply chain for the NHS should be earning their money by publicly answering for the position we’re in.’

Mike Williams, the first head of ABHI, the trade association for the medical technology sector, said SCCL was run by ‘bureaucratic and frequently incompetent management’. 

Mr Williams, who later became a respected international healthcare business consultant before retiring, said there needed to be a complete overhaul in the way the NHS purchases goods.

‘I do not believe that SCCL is fit for purpose,’ he said.

‘The NHS, although a wonderful organisation at the sharp-end, is run by bureaucratic and frequently incompetent management who couldn’t fight their way out of a commercial paper bag.

‘They do not know how to buy things, they do not know how to source things and we don’t hear from these pen-pushers.

‘The incompetence of the NHS supply system is letting the country down at this time.’ 

Another healthcare source, who asked to be kept anonymous, added: ‘I’m sure these views would be echoed by many in the trade.’

SCCL replaced the Business Services Agency (BSA) to run the NHS Supply Chain to make it more efficient. Its projected running costs were £180 million in its first year of operation and £250 million in 2019.  

Mr Spittle, who worked in retail for 20-years, was hired by SCCL in September 2018 to ensure health trusts were happy with products provided.  

When approached by MailOnline, Mr Spittle, who lives in an affluent area of Northamptonshire, where homes average at more than £1 million also refused to comment.

His wife said: ‘You need to realise there’s a worldwide shortage and it’s very difficult to get hold of anything.

‘Everyone is working so hard at the moment and doing everything we can. It’s a very difficult time for everyone.’  

A British Medical Association survey of 6000 doctors found half of those in high risk areas confirmed shortages or no supply at all of disposable gowns and goggles.

An NHS Supply Chain spokeswoman said: ‘We have stock on order from the UK and European countries in addition to suppliers based in the Far East to continue to secure a pipeline and replenish our stocks to help ensure these products are delivered to the frontline.

‘Understandably, there has been huge global demand for many types of PPE and it is important that all PPE is used in line with the UK guidance to maintain both safety and supplies.’

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care added: ‘Adequate supply of protective equipment is an international issue facing many countries during this global pandemic.

‘Our stockpiles and planning have allowed us to deliver nearly one billion pieces of protective equipment to the frontline so far.’