I'd say it may be procurement, but probably ineffective expediting is behind a lot of it too.

I hope that something does happen soon as that crafty barsteward that runs Ryanair has now decided that refunds for cancelled flights will not happen in seven days as per the law or in 28 days as per Ryanair's recent emails to me but once the COVID-19 pandemic is over which could be any time of their choosing and the most annoying thing is that I have two further holidays booked including flights from them

My knowledge of NHS procurement is sketchy at best but it does seem to me that a lot of it remains at local level with the trusts negotiating their own contracts and competing with one another. The idea that "salesmen" visit doctors and nurses to promote drugs and equipment has always felt uncomfortable to me, as a waste of everybody's time and money. Surely many things ought to be handled at a national level? The principal of subsidiarity applies just as much with the NHS as anywhere else. I understand the desire to introduce internal markets, to improve efficiency and reduce bureaucracy, but when this is a consequence questions need to be asked.

We are effectively now in a war against the virus and time. The only time in my lifetime I witnessed the UK going onto a war footing was when we went to the Falklands. What I saw then amazed me. I happened to be living close to a major emergency army supply base near Tewkesbury and the amount of equipment that was moved from there, 24 hours a day for a week or two, was incredible. The warehouses there are enormous and seemingly stretch for miles .

Surely one of the lessons from this must be we need a similar reserve facility for health care, with the stock rotated into actual use to avoid deterioration.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

This is where I fault the government / Public Health England they should have been stock piling in February.

One more point

Wow, you don't miss much do you. I'm surprised anyone picked up the reference

Exactly what was said in our household this morning (except the Jon-Luc Picard bit!).
One can only hope that many lessons have been learnt and will be acted upon, maybe a whole different world awaits, who knows