
NHS procurement official privately selling PPE - samizdis
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/01/revealed-nhs-procurement-official-privately-selling-ppe
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teh_klev
Is there really a story here? It's not like he's stealing and selling from the
NHS's own stockpile.

By all accounts he's maybe doing a good thing by connecting smaller PPE
vendors to customers. From what I've read (and know first hand), smaller
suppliers find it notoriously difficult to break into NHS procurement.

That article states that "he is _a_ head of procurement for the NHS in London"
(the italicisation of "a" is mine). What does that even mean?

Sounds more like a guy who's doing a bit of business on the side and Guardian
haven't really shown conclusively that there's a conflict of interest.

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alexandercrohde
I think the story is that he's a government official, presumably operating on
inside information. Thus it's a conflict of interest.

If I'm an official charged with managing public health, and I use my
early/special awareness of a virus to stockpile medical supplies, I see that a
basically insider trading.

You're also glossing over the fact that his job was head-of-procument. So
there's no way that privately procuring PPE didn't conflict with his job of
professionally procuring PPE for the government. The fact that he chooses to
lie about it presumably shows he knows it's wrong.

Not sure how you could see this as non-firable, potentially criminal.

~~~
brigandish
> So there's no way that privately procuring PPE didn't conflict with his job
> of professionally procuring PPE for the government

Would it be possible that the trust had all the PPE it needed and therefore
there's no conflict of interest? Not every trust is lacking PPE. If he then
trades in it he's not conflicting at all with his main employer.

