Analysis comment

Tories ignore 5,000 approved and ready ventilators to order 10,000 new, unapproved design from Dyson

Furious UK supplier condemns government’s slowness to act

The Tory government has ignored an offer of 5,000 medical ventilators – ready and approved – from a UK supplier to place an order for 10,000 medical ventilators of an untested design from vacuum cleaner manufacturer Dyson.

Dyson ‘hopes’ to build the ‘new type of ventilator’ at its Wiltshire base, but will be relying on a ‘rush’ programme of testing and approval – and then will need at least a couple of weeks to scale up from prototype to full production, according to the BBC News website.

However, the government lost an offered 5,000 ventilators – of existing and approved design – because of its slowness to respond to an offer from a Cheshire-based firm who had them ready to deliver.

Nantwich firm Direct Access contacted the government over a week ago with the offer of 5,000 UAE-built machines and millions of coronavirus testing kits, but received only an automated response – and the stocks were snapped up by other countries.

Direct Access’s experience was far from unique. Andrew Raynor of medical manufacturer MEC Medical said he saw no response when he contacted the government with an offer:

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said earlier this month that the government would take any ventilators it was offered:

Hancock claimed at the time that he had been talking to the UK’s top engineering companies about building ventilators, but it emerged that the government had only just organised a conference call with Boris Johnson for the following weekend, after almost two months of dithering.

SKWAWKBOX view:

More Tory dithering has cost the UK 5,000 ventilators it could have had within a very short time – but hey, Dyson is designing something completely new and not yet tried or tested, so that’s ok.

All too typically, the Dyson order is receiving lengthy coverage from the BBC and other Establishment media – but not the fact that Johnson’s and Hancock’s meandering let 5,000 slip through their fingers.

The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here for a monthly donation via GoCardless. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.

If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.

23 comments

  1. The 5000 lost ventilators and test kits are going to be just the tip of the iceberg.

    Even if he is a Tory donor, Dyson have practically lost the market for vacuums here after closing down UK production and leaving the UK to spend time with his money in a tax haven. But then I noticed recently that all the fans used for cooling on hospital wards in our local hospital were Dyson, and also the hand dryers in the loos.

    Seems that the procurement of Dyson for the NHS has become the lucrative pathway now. I hope these are going to be produced without profit –
    oh, wait………

  2. Not only a donor but a fully paid up member of the Loony Right brigade. The hard Brexiter who immediately took his business overseas leaving his employees without jobs.

    1. Singapore the bolt hole for Dyson is in Lockdown thats Strictly enforced.Nothing’s coming from Dyson or anybody else before the mass culling of the people.

  3. … and note that the mad Brexiteers have put that nonsense ahead of joining with the EU in levering purchase.

    1. RH.. ITs over and so will be a lot of lives in this Tory version of The NHS,and that includes a lot of dedicated Staff in our hospitals on the front line of infection.Brexit give it up!

  4. Now imagine that a Labour government had put ideology ahead of saving lives in a situation like this. It would be the top story on every news broadcast and on the front page of every national newspaper until they had been hounded out of office. I’m currently struggling to find any mention of this story beyond The Guardian…

    1. Even there the blurb at the bottom of the page about ‘challenge those in power’ rings decidedly hollow, as usual, when they should be tearing this hapless government to pieces over this issue alone (and much else besides, of course).

      They certainly didn’t hold back on tearing Labour to bits at every opportunity over the antisemitism farce – and they weren’t even in power!

  5. Hancock’ is constantly improvising, having frittered away many weeks with his head lodged firmly up his arse (or Johnson’s). His interviews are total flannel and evasion, to the point that it’s embarrassing as much as infuriating. Mostly he gets away with it, with limp unchallenging interviewers. Not so, however, with Gary Gibbon on Channel 4 News 23rd March. In a nine minute interview Gibbon eviscerated him. Google Channel 4 News and scroll down, it’s about 20th or so. You won’t be disappointed.

  6. Just watched a video from Spain of a man saying that because there aren’t enough ventilators there, doctors are removing ventilators from the sick over 65s and putting them on sedation until they die!

    1. That is exactly what would have to happen here because you couldn’t in all conscience let an old man hog the machine while the younger one dies. Somebody has to go in this Tory Utopia.

      1. Paul…dont forget its a working class oldster ,not q jumping Royals who then bugger off to Scotland to there Holiday home and infect the local working class..US and Them?

    2. Yep, the military-style battlefield ‘triage’ process , necessary when the need for medical assistance severely outstrips the supply of that assistance. In those, up to 13 now, new London Excel ‘Nightingale-style’ so-called critical care facilities being established, or soon to be established, near the major cities, if the epidemic reaches total staff endurance and equipment availability overload, then those shipped to those out of town giant warehouses, ie, the old, pre-existing illnesses weakened, unlikely to survive, component of that triage system, will indeed be left to die, alone , without their loved ones nearby. Hopefully staff will be on hand with the morphine overdoses before they suffer too much. I have already just drawn up my ‘Do Not Resuscitate if I am unconscious from coronavirus and unable to provide my consent’ statement for my GP that the NHS online site kindly provides a link to , in case I, as an oldie, finds myself in one of those scary mass dying warehouses .

      And still that pathological Tory liar , Hancock, barefacedly denies any unnecessary shortages in NHS resources at every interview, no doubt to the anger and despair of NHS staff .

  7. Tory spivs and thieves grease each others palms, what’s new
    JRM millionaire disaster master what first attracted you to No Deal Brexit
    Snouts in troughs as socialism for billionaires goes fucking stratospheric

  8. My god, I hope the Dyson ventilators do not include a switch. I’ve had three Dyson vacuums cleaners and the switches on them were rubbish! Look elsewhere Boris.

    1. Dyson vacuums are unreliable and over priced. A case of marketing and advertising over substance.

  9. Playing games with the lives of the working classes and did we expect anything else?.Well its far worse than you think,Apart from knowingly l keeping the “True” death figures from the public,the establishment are Culling the Herd and planning mass death centres under the guide of “Health centres”.And the propaganda machine the wonderful BBC are still warning of fake news to cover the establishment murders.

    1. Jok you spot on they been culling the stock through benefits denial since in power whot a godsend for them another culling virus that wipe out all those useless eaters us oldies our pensions going once more into their pockets fraudsters and crooks in power traitors gate needs open then all these crooks rowed into the tower

  10. Seems a few here are linking dysons dislike of the eu with the quality of his items.

    I’m in NO WAY defending dyson, but I wonder if the same people linking dyson’s views on the eu with his overpriced gear would be saying the same if the pro-eu alan sugar’d got the gig?

    dyson or amstrad?

    Like a choice between horseshit and cowshit really, innit?

Leave a Reply to SteveHCancel reply

Discover more from SKWAWKBOX

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading