UK Trebles its Emergency Response Fund for Covid-19 to £14.5 billion

The British chancellor, Rishi Sunak has reportedly beefed up the relief package for Covid-19 by almost three times to provide financial assistance to NHS (National Health Service), the publicly funded national healthcare system for Britain and other public services in the United Kingdom. The British Conservative Party politician, Rishi Sunak, who took charge of Chancellor in February 2020, had set up the emergency response fund for Coronavirus in March 2020. The Finance Minister, in his first annual budget statement to parliament held last month, had announced setting up a fund of 5 billion pounds to help Britain’s National Health Service and other public services tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, the addition of £9 billion of funds to the initial £5 billion relief package would boost the administrative services and the NHS. Around the world, even in the developed economies, there has been an acute shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators and other healthcare systems which are urgently required by the doctors, healthcare staff and hospitals. The government has already faced severe criticism for not being able to meet this shortage of PPE and its unpreparedness to fight the pandemic.

NHS and the PPE Shortages

NHS staff workers are falling prey global pandemic in huge numbers due to lack of PPE kits and reportedly few have already died in serving the nation. The senior medical practitioners and politicians have criticised the British government over its failure to procure and provide the personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators and testing gear to NHS and healthcare staff to tackle the coronavirus crisis. From 31st January 2020 to 13 April 2020, there have been 84,283 positive cases of COVID-19 reported, with 10,612 deaths in the United Kingdom, according to WHO.

The United Kingdom did not prepare well for this unprecedented crisis. According to some media reports, the UK did not join hands with the European Union to procure PPE and testing gear. The UK deliberately did not join the European Union on several occasions to procure the necessary healthcare equipment to fight this lethal disease.

Furthermore, the British government ignored the warnings raised by the medical unions over the low stock of protective gowns required by the doctors in performing highest-risk procedures on coronavirus patients. According to Doctors’ Association UK, these protective full-sleeve gowns are of immense importance in jobs like intubating patients so that they can be put on lifesaving equipment such as a ventilator. The NHS service providers had indicated the government about the low level of inventory and supplies of these gowns. These gowns are designed to resist against the droplets that can spread the contagious disease and hence can be highly effective for the doctors and healthcare staff in treating the patients.

Doctors and healthcare staff are considered the frontline staff in putting up a fight against the novel coronavirus and a halt in the supply of PPE kits could lead to infections among the healthcare staff and doctors.

New fund to emergency response

However, the Finance Minister said that the government would do anything to support the NHS and public authorities to fight this pandemic. He added that the public health systems and other administrative services are working hard to ensure the safety of the citizens. These services would be continuously backed by the government to keep them up and running in order to protect this country and its people from Covid-19 impact.

According to the treasury, the relief package is now worth £14.5 billion. This package includes a dedicated corpus of £6.6 billion to the health services which would be utilised in provisioning hospital beds, procuring ventilators, setting up testing centres for diagnosis and procuring protective equipment for NHS staff. Another £3.5 billion has been set aside for the local authorities including administrations in Wales & Northern Ireland and Scotland. Around 900 million pounds from the package have been set aside for providing food and special assistance to the vulnerable people. In addition, 3.5 billion pounds have been earmarked for operating rail services.

This relief package for the pandemic would be funded from the existing reserves of the government and funds raised through additional government borrowing. The further details shall follow in the next budget, as indicated by the treasury department. Also, the Treasury Department had earlier indicated an extension of its overdraft facility at the UK’s central bank. As per some reports, the situation can further aggravate as the UK’s economic output is expected to plunge by 30 per cent between April and June. Market experts are of opinion; the economy will be shrunk by around 15-24 per cent amid the coronavirus crisis.

Covid-19 and its present situation

The novel coronavirus has wreaked havoc on the entire world not just economically but also in terms of loss of human lives. According to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) website, the Covid-19 outbreak has claimed 113,675 lives with 1,812,734 of active cases and the spread reaching in more than 210 countries across the globe as on 14^th April 2020. The unprecedented crisis has brought the economies to a halt globally, leaving millions of people jobless.

In addition, a lot of wealth has been wiped off from the value of global equity markets, reflecting huge losses both on the individual investors, and on the part of pooled investments of savings held by insurance and pension funds. These turns of events were unthinkable, which has caused the global meltdown of the financial markets. To put up a fight against this deadly pandemic, the governments across the globe had been forced to impose lockdowns without any proper planning. Due to lockdowns, the availability of credit has immensely impacted businesses. Entities are relying more on the grants and loans from the state, but the state also has its limitations, as it needs tax revenue and credit, which has already dried up and left them with increasing deficits. The situation further worsened due to the plummeting oil prices due to low demand and high supply factor.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, who was tested positive for Covid-19, was discharged from the hospital on Sunday. He thanked the NHS for saving his life and termed the organisation as one of the most valuable assets of the United Kingdom.

Disclaimer

The website has been prepared for informational purposes only and is not intended to be used as a complete source of information on any particular company. The above article is NOT a solicitation or recommendation to buy, sell or hold the stock of the company (or companies) under discussion. Kalkine does not in any way endorse or recommend individuals, products or services that may be discussed on this site.