The government has missed opportunities to secure at least 16m face masks for NHS staff in the past four weeks, amid growing frustration from companies who say Britain is losing much-needed equipment to other countries. As ministers faced relentless questions over a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) in hospitals, suppliers said their offers to deliver UK-standard face masks were being met with silence from the government. And on another day of chaos over the government’s PPE procurement, a senior civil servant said that its decision to opt out of a joint EU scheme was politically motivated. However he was forced to retract his claim within hours after he was contradicted by the health secretary, Matt Hancock. Adding to the confusion, Hancock claimed that the UK had now joined the scheme – only for EU sources to note that the U-turn had happened recently so Britain would not benefit from the supplies of emergency equipment. As new figures revealed that care home fatalities had quadrupled over the last week and as another 823 deaths were announced, the government faced further acute pressure over difficulties securing protective gear for hospitals and care homes. These problems included: The saga of the PPE shipment sourced from Turkey, which dragged on, with an RAF plane sitting on the tarmac in Istanbul for hours before the first batch was delivered, and two more aircraft yet to leave from the UK Ministers were forced to defend the disclosure that millions of pieces of equipment including respirators and masks had been shipped from British warehouses to Spain, Italy and Germany Social care groups struggling to source enough PPE on the open market said that plans to allow them to access the NHS supply chain had left them in a dire situation, with all forms of PPE due to run out within days. Of 8,000 companies so far offering PPE within the UK, the government has engaged with about 1,000 and is working with 159 manufacturers to bring the offered supplies into use. But many of those firms said that they had seen offers of rapidly available and certified equipment ignored. Volker Schuster, the owner of the Merseyside-based chemicals firm EcoLogix, said he wrote to the cabinet office’s “Covid commercial response unit” offering to supply 10m FFP2 masks for frontline medics that would be ready to ship from China within a week. He said he submitted details of the masks, including their European CE certification, but only received a substantive response eight days later – asking for details he had already provided. By that time the masks had been sold to other countries. Schuster’s MP, Bill Esterson, confirmed that he also contacted the office of the health secretary, Matt Hancock, to highlight the offer on 27 March but that he had never received a reply. Rachel Reeves, the shadow cabinet office minister, said on Tuesday she had been inundated by manufacturers who had contacted the government offering to make or supply PPE but that she had heard nothing back. Reeves also accused the government of prioritising “major fashion and clothing brands … over companies that may have been better placed to manufacture what is needed as quickly as possible”. Retailers including Burberry and Barbour announced collaborations with the government to help increase availability of PPE supplies. Hancock said in the televised Downing Street briefing that the government was accelerating its response to companies but that officials were having to filter out approaches from firms which were not credible. He said: “We’re always trying to improve the processes that we have in place to make purchases. We want to engage with all those companies who can help us in this national effort and we are accelerating the progress of getting back to all those companies with a substantive response. This is a fast-moving market. There is a global shortage … and that means we need to be as nimble as we possibly can.” The infectious disease specialists, Landcent, said it could have distributed 6m FFP2 face masks to the UK if the government had placed an order when it first submitted an offer three weeks ago. Arun Prabhu, Landcent’s co-founder, said its UK partner, EFDUK, had contacted the government at the end of March offering to supply face masks, testing kits and protective overalls. He said they received a reply expressing interest in face masks “three or four days later” but had heard nothing since. “By now we would have supplied close to 6m face masks,” he said, adding that the firm had already shipped millions of Ply surgical masks to Austria, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. Prabhu said Britain risked losing out to other countries unless it responded more quickly to credible offers. “There is a global demand but there is no lack of supplies – it’s just tapping into the right distributing partners. I would urge [the British government] to assign a special taskforce who are primarily focused towards procurement.” Both EcoLogix and Landcent said they submitted detailed information on the specification of their face masks and that these met the UK requirements and were CE approved, meaning they meet EU standards for health and safety. Esterson, the shadow minister for international trade, said the government’s “shambolic” response to credible offers to secure PPE was putting lives at risk from the coronavirus pandemic. He said: “It cannot be right that companies which can help with PPE and which have offered to help are facing long delays in hearing back from the government. People are dying and this needs to be simplified and speeded up.” Social care companies meanwhile were critical of the government’s plan allowing to them to use the NHS supply chain where commercial options failed. One group, Methodist Homes, called the system “not clear at all” and said that just two of the firm’s 131 sites had managed to order basic supplies. The Sue Ryder palliative care charity said it was in a diresituation, with all forms of PPE due to run out within days, and that it had not heard from the government that it could access the NHS supply chain. A government spokesperson said there had been more than 8,000 offers of support, adding: “We are working rapidly to get through these offers, ensuring they meet the safety and quality standards that our NHS and social care workers need, and prioritising offers of larger volumes.”