Confusion deepens over government’s procurement of new ventilators. According to the head of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, the specification for UK’s hospital ventilator programme will not produce machines suitable for treating coronavirus patients.

Government’s request for ventilators that would — at minimum — stabilise patients “for a few hours” was not in line with what was requested by medical experts last month. They had asked for devices that would work for the duration of a Covid-19 patient’s stay in intensive care.

“If we had been told that that was the case — that the ventilators were only to treat a patient for a few hours — we’d have said: ‘Don’t bother, you’re wasting your time. That’s of no use whatsoever’,” she told the Financial Times.