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An NHS chief procurement officer has established a business to profit from the private sale of large quantities of personal protective equipment (PPE) amid the coronavirus outbreak, a covert investigation by The Guardian may reveal.
David Singleton, 42, a senior NHS official in London who has been working at the Covid-19 Nightingale hospital in the capital, launched the business two weeks ago to trade visors, masks and dresses.
When asked about the results of the investigation, Singleton said he disclosed his business to superiors on the NHS, according to the rules, and that they were told that “there was unlikely to be a conflict.”
However, the NHS launched an immediate investigation. “We take potential conflicts of interest very seriously and as soon as we become aware of these allegations an internal investigation has been launched,” a spokesman said.
Singleton’s company website Sure Stock, which marketed EPP to private sector and NHS clients, made no reference to Singleton or its role in the health service. But in a phone call with an undercover journalist posing as a potential client, Singleton confirmed that he was running the business. He said he was operating as a “sales agent” between suppliers and buyers of EPP.
According to Singleton’s LinkedIn profile, which he deleted shortly after the Guardian told him about his investigation, he is the head of acquisitions for the NHS in London. It works within a large start-up support unit (CSU) that covers the north and east of the capital and the surrounding areas. The investigation is understood to be being conducted by his employer, the NHS’s North and East London CSN.
During the conversation with the undercover journalist, Singleton said he was “currently an NHS employee,” but said his role was not to buy “any product.” “I provide services,” he said. “Therefore, none of the providers I’m working with interacts during my daily work.”
When asked if he was exploiting his experience and contacts on the NHS, Singleton said in a statement that he was not “directly involved” in responding to the shortage of PPE in the NHS “as my role does not imply the purchase or acquisition of these products”.
However, information gathered by The Guardian, including internal evidence from the NHS email, suggests that Singleton may have been involved in the acquisition of EPP supplies. When asked to respond to a request for comment on the email evidence, Singleton replied “no comment” and hung up the phone. The NHS declined to comment on the email evidence.
Singleton created his EPP company on April 15, as the shortage of protective equipment for the NHS and other health and care workers working on the front line of the coronavirus outbreak was reaching a critical point.
His company, Sure Stock Limited, originally registered at Singleton’s Essex home, launched a website that same week, marketing PPE products for “medical, dental, adult social care, the food industry and personal use.”
The website offered large quantities of PPE and hygiene products for sale, including face shields or “smart visors,” which were priced at £ 19,500 for minimum orders of 10,000 units.
Posing as an agent for a meat processing factory, a reporter for The Guardian approached Sure Stock alleging that his client urgently needed large amounts of PPE to protect about 800 workers and return the facility to full production.
The Sure Stock vendor, a friend and associate of Singleton, confirmed that the company had been created by Singleton and said it could help obtain batches of 20,000 visors, masks, gowns, and gloves, as well as 1,000 liters of hand sanitizer, such as part of a first order. The sale would have totaled more than £ 100,000.
The vendor told the undercover reporter: “Essentially, a friend of mine is the head of acquisitions at NHS London. She has really had trouble getting things to people on the proper time frame. Basically what we decided to do was to set up a small business and become sales agents for people in the UK who have shares. And then we would essentially help link supply chains that are massively disastrous right now. “
The undercover journalist then asked to speak to Singleton directly. During a 40-minute phone conversation, Singleton told the undercover reporter: “What we do is work with the supplier, and then our margin, our commission, our benchmark, comes from them before prices drop. So we only work as a sales agent. “
He also revealed that he was an NHS employee. “We want to cultivate relationships like yours. Because people like you can open doors for some of my suppliers in areas that are not currently reached, “he told the undercover journalist.” Therefore, a network of trusted suppliers and buyers is growing because you cannot be a supplier unless you have a buyer. “You can’t be a buyer unless you have a supplier. You need to have these things. You need to connect.”
Towards the end of the call, Singleton emphasized how competitive the prices of his riflescopes were and encouraged the undercover reporter to “piggyback” a large order “today … going through the Far East. [and a UK importer]He added: “What I would end up saying is that when you are in a position where you know you want to place an order, you can be sure that you are going to deal with a UK company.”
Singleton told the undercover reporter that during the Covid-19 outbreak he had been “redistributed” to Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Center and Royal London Hospital and was “helping them set up their emerging UTI [intensive treatment unit] rooms and their warehouses. “
In his statement to the Guardian following the undercover investigation, Singleton said that he had not established UTIs or storage rooms and that he had not participated in any acquisitions at the hospital.
He said he had notified his employer of Sure Stock, as required, and that a superior had informed him that “there is unlikely to be a conflict” as it was perceived that there would be no crossover in terms of customers. Singleton said declaring that management was the main step toward compliance and that this had been completed.
However, The Guardian understands that while Singleton recently declared his new business through an NHS internal online reporting system, the disclosure was under review and had not yet been approved.
In his conversation with the undercover journalist, the Singleton vendor appeared to give conflicting accounts on whether or not the company planned to market to the NHS. At one point, he said, “We really don’t want to get close to anyone on the NHS, because there is a bit of a conflict of interest, so we are staying out of it.”
But during another part of the conversation, about the shortage of dresses on the market, the vendor said: “We have many NHS trusts that are frantically calling to try to get them and they can’t.” He added: “Now what we are doing with them is that we are offering the NHS 30 days to pay.”
In their email statement, Singleton said Sure Stock “has not sold and will not sell NHS related PPE and equipment, nor to any NHS organization.” He added: “Any complaint is false.”
However, a photograph in the face shields of the Sure Stock website showed a visor with the NHS logo printed on the front, and the company offered deals for NHS customers. “For our NHS heroes, their price is fixed!” the website stated.
In his statement, Singleton said that face shields were not sold to the NHS because they failed to comply with the complex medical device regulations that govern the manufacture and supply of such products.
Sure Stock’s website was baffled shortly after Singleton was contacted by The Guardian for comment. Now it just says, “Coming soon.”
